“It’s natural,” Raven said.
“But not for me.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
“Easy for you to say.”
Raven smiled at her friend. “You do have to make an effort. You can’t sit in this shop and then go straight home.”
Smiling back faintly, Alicia said, “And then get up the next morning and come straight to the shop.”
“We need to find somebody to make a foursome out of us.”
“I don’t want to tangle up your relationship with Tómas.”
“Nonsense. We’ll get started on this right away.”
“But—”
Raven placed a fingertip on Alicia’s lips. “No buts. You allowed me to join you here at the shop. The least I can do is help you to find a little happiness.”
REVENGE
“It’s useless,” Tómas moaned. “We’re using data that was assumed to be some four billion years old. Nothing more than an educated guess.”
Sitting across her kitchen’s narrow table from the astronomer, Raven asked, “The data isn’t good enough?”
Tómas shook his head wearily. “It’s all guesses. Theory. Hot air.”
“But you said you thought the moons were scattered two million years ago, not four billion.”
“That’s a guess, too. My guess.”
“Isn’t there any way to prove that?”
He stared at her. “Raven, what do you think I’ve been trying to do for the past two weeks? Zworkyn and I have been going through the numbers backward and forward and upside-down! Nothing works!”
“What about the big moon, Triton? Could you backtrack its orbit or something?”
“Pah! You don’t understand. You just don’t understand anything!” Tómas pushed his barely touched plate of dinner away and got to his feet.
“Where are you going?” Raven asked.
“Back to Zworkyn’s place. At least I can talk to him. He knows what we’re up against.”
And he stormed out of the kitchen, through the living room, and left Raven sitting at the table alone.
In Haven’s surveillance center, Sergeant Jacobi sat in front of a spare monitor screen. Three other men, all in security department uniforms, hunched behind him.
“There he is now,” said Jacobi, pointing to Tómas Gomez’s figure as the astronomer left Raven’s quarters.
The men nodded. “Shouldn’t be much trouble,” said one of them, a chunky, dour-faced Asian.
“Get him when he’s alone. No witnesses. Plain clothes.”
“Sure.” Straightening up, the Asian turned to his two companions. “Come on, our shift’s just about over. Let’s get out of these uniforms.”
“Hoodies,” said Jacobi. “The surveillance cameras won’t be able to identify you.”
The Asian nodded. He left with the two others following him.
Jacobi turned back to the monitor screen, a grim smile creasing his face. He whispered, “You’re in for a surprise, smart boy.”
As he stared at the computer’s latest imagery, Vincente Zworkyn shook his head.
Turning to Gomez, perched tensely beside him on the edge of the sofa, Zworkyn said mournfully, “Another dead end, Tómas.” He pointed at the screen. “See? The trajectory data disappears into the noise.”
Gomez nodded. “Let’s go on to the next one.”
“What for?” Zworkyn demanded, his voice rising. “We’ve tracked six of the moons and their paths all get swallowed up in gibberish. It’s hopeless!”
“We still have a half-dozen more moons to track.”
“And their trajectories will all end up in the noise, too! Admit it, we’re defeated.”
His jaw settling into a stubborn scowl, Gomez said, “The information is there, Vincente. I know it is.”
“No,” Zworkyn countered. “You think it is. You hope it is. That doesn’t mean that it’s really there.”
“It’s got to be there!”
“Why? Because you want it to be? The universe doesn’t play favorites, Tómas. You’ve got to know when to fold ’em, buddy.”
Never! Gomez said to himself. But he slowly got up from the sofa and, without a word, left Zworkyn’s quarters.
Out in the empty passageway, Tómas debated whether he should go to his own quarters or ask Raven if he could spend the night with her.
If she’d have me, he said to himself. I treated her pretty shabbily at dinner. He glanced at his wristwatch: almost midnight. She’s probably already asleep.
Still, he walked to the embarkation center where the shuttle was moored.
There was only one person at the center, an elderly white-bearded clerk sitting comfortably behind a semicircular desk, intently watching a motion picture of some sort on his desktop screen.
He looked up as Tómas approached. “Evenin’, Doc. Workin’ late again, huh.”
Tómas nodded and gave him a half-hearted smile.
“You’re in luck, Doc,” said the clerk. “We got one bird all primed and ready to go.”
“Thanks,” said Tómas. He ducked through the hatch and entered the shuttle’s passenger deck. It was empty, except for him.
“Bon voyage,” called the clerk.
Tómas made a half-hearted wave for him.
The shuttles were automated, no crew aboard. Tómas took a seat, the hatch swung shut, and within less than a minute he felt the subtle surge of acceleration. Five minutes later the shuttle made a little lurch that meant it had docked at Haven.
I wonder if Raven will open her door for me? Tómas asked himself as he stepped through the shuttle’s hatch and into the empty reception area. I wasn’t much fun for her at dinner.
Still, he walked through the reception area and out into the passageway that led to Raven’s quarters. The passageway was empty, except for a trio of kids in hoodies lounging a few dozen meters up ahead. Tómas paid them no mind.
Until, as he passed them, one half whispered, “Hello, Doc.”
Slowing his pace, Tómas asked, “Do I know you?”
“Naw. But we know you.”
They weren’t kids, Tómas realized as the three of them surrounded him. Two grabbed his arms and the third smashed a paralyzing blow to his nose. Tómas’s head snapped back. He struggled to free his arms. A punch to his kidney collapsed him and he sagged to the ground.
One of his assailants pulled a hammer from his jacket. “Compliments of Noel Dacco, pal.” He smashed Tómas’s left leg just below the kneecap. The pain was shattering. Then another crushing blow to his head and Tómas blacked out.
When he regained consciousness he was lying on the passageway floor, bleeding, his leg broken and his skull fractured. As if from an incredible distance he could hear the sound of a trio of footfalls running away.
BOOK SIX
THE SAINT
KYLE UMBER
Kyle Umber always insisted that he was not a saint.
“You have to be dead before you can be made a saint,” he would say, with that boyish smile of his. “I’m still alive and kicking.”
Now, though, as he knelt alone in his private quarters, the memory of that little piece of self-serving humility bedeviled him. The arrogance of it. The self-important smugness. Here we have several thousand migrants from Earth—the poor, the hopeless, the lost—and I joke about being worthy of sainthood.
He had been on his knees for the better part of an hour, vainly seeking a path out of the trap he’d built for himself. You don’t run this habitat, he realized. Evan Waxman does. And you let him do it! You stood aside, content to be admired by the poor souls arriving here, and let Evan take up the controls of the habitat.