were the battle station’s last line of defense against invasion.
More blasters fired at him from behind, but Pias’s armor gave him time enough to turn
and calmly shoot back at the offending weapons, knocking them out of commission
before they could do sufficient damage to him.
Silence descended on the station once more-not the silence of peace, this time, but the
heavy silence of an enemy contemplating its next move. Pias was sure he’d taken care of
most of the blasters around him; the only other weapons he feared were bombs or
grenades, and the enemy was not about to set such things off near its central command
post. There would be too much destroyed in the process, and the station would be
irreparably damaged while being “saved.”
Pias had not thought about the use of ultragrav as a weapon, and the sudden
gravitational field hit him hard. The five-gee force caught him unaware, but fortunately he
didn’t have far to fall to the “floor” of the corridor. The space armor absorbed a lot of the
shock, and while Pias had the air knocked out of him, he was not unconscious.
His native world of Newforest had a .gravitational field of two and half Earth gravities,
and he’d been spending a lot of time lately on DesPlaines with its three-gee field. The
space armor was exceedingly heavy, nearly doubling his normal body weight. He felt he
was carrying a load four times his accustomed self-a burden that would stagger anyone.
Slowly, very slowly, Pias brought up first one leg, then the other, until he was in a
hands-and-knees position. That’s as far as I’m going to make it, he thought. He gritted
his teeth against the pain and crawled down the corridor. The lights suddenly went out,
but he turned on his helmet lamp and continued the painful crawl.
There were a couple of doorways further down the hallway, both sealed closed. Pias
took his last grenade and pushed it along the floor ahead of him. The grenade just
reached the doorways as it exploded, shattering the metal doors inward. Pias then
continued his crawl until he reached the doorways.
One of the rooms looked to be the control center of the station, but there was no one in
it. In the other room, however, he struck paydirt. Jules and Yvette were bound and
stretched up against the wall, sagging under the increased gravitational field. Tanya
Boros was lying on the ground, barely conscious. She was not wearing heavy armor–but
then, she was not used to five gees, either. By turning on the ultragrav within the central
sphere, the battle station’s computer had immobilized her as well.
Boros looked at the hole in the door and the blaster in Pias’s hand. She may have been a
silly and vindictive woman, but she was enough of a realist to want to stay alive. “I
surrender,” she gasped feebly.
“Good,” Pias said in a voice only barely stronger. His voice was carried to her by the
armor’s exterior speakers. “Now how do you turn this damned thing off?”
Boros gathered her strength together and said, “Peace mode” as loudly as she could.
The computer, attuned to her voice, obeyed the command. The ultragrav shut off as
quickly as it had come on, and the station reverted to freefall.
After pausing for a moment to gather his own strength, Pias pushed himself off the floor
and floated over to Yvette. He untied her and gave her the gun to hold on Boros while he
quickly undid the helmet of his armor. The oxygen gauge read below empty.
“What took you so long?” his wife asked him lightly, though her concern was evident in
her eyes.
Pias shrugged. “Oh, I just decided to take the scenic route. ”
Chapter 12
The Talking Asteroid
The ship that approached Dr. Loxner’s private asteroid was smaller than Captain Fortier
would have liked. Knowing that Loxner was deeper into the conspiracy than had
previously been suspected, he’d wanted to invade the hideaway with a full contingent of
Imperial Marines. Fortier knew how well fortified a rock in space could be.
Duke Etienne talked him out of it. “We want information, not a war,” he pointed out. “The
Navy could pound that rock to pieces, but we won’t learn anything more from that. If we
go as unofficial individuals, Loxner will feel less threatened and we may get more out of
him.”
“But we’ll be at his mercy,” Fortier protested.
“You needn’t worry about that,” Etienne assured him. “I’ve got a few handy tricks of my
own.”
Etienne, Helena, and Fortier were the only people in the spaceship’s cabin as it neared
Loxner’s private asteroid. As they came within fifty kilometers their radio crackled to life.
“The asteroid you are approaching is private property.
Please change course to avoid trespassing, in accordance with Imperial Statue
6817.52.”
Etienne was prepared for that, and broadcast back, “This is a former patient of Dr.
Loxner’s, Gregori Ivanov. I must speak with Dr. Loxner about some surgery he
performed on me twenty years ago.”
There was a long silence at the other end before a response came back. “There is no
record of any patient by that name.”
“I, uh, didn’t have this name when Dr. Loxner worked on me. It’s been changed several
times since then. It’s inadvisable to broadcast my former name over an unsecured radio
channel.
Another long pause. Then: “You are given permission to land. Please follow the beacon
to the landing site.” Etienne acknowledged the command and did as requested, landing
his ship in the small crater whose floor had been cleared for visitors to the asteroid.
There was no other ship in sight, not even one for Dr. Loxner’s own use. The trio
wondered whether Loxner ever left his asteroid, or whether he simply had supplies
brought in to him at intervals.
A long, thick metal tube snaked out of the crater wall and fastened itself to the small
ship’s airlock so the visitors could walk through the passenger tube into the heart of the
asteroid without having to don their spacesuits. The far end of the tube led through a
door to a small anteroom with plain walls and no furnishings. A camera mounted in an
upper corner monitored the proceedings. The artificial gravity within the asteroid was set
at a standard one gee.
“Permission was given only for Gregori Ivanov,” a voice said through a speaker in front of
them. “Who are the other two people’?”
“This is my son Pavel and my daughter-in-law Lianna.
They go everywhere with me these days. I have no secrets from them. They are no
security risks.”
“You are carrying stun-pistols. They must be checked at the door. No weapons are
allowed within the asteroid.” An empty drawer extended itself from the wall on their left.
“Of course,” Etienne said, quickly removing his gun from its holster. Fortier and Helena
exchanged worried glances, but reluctantly followed the Duke’s lead.
When they had put their guns in the proffered drawer, which then withdrew back into the
wall, the voice spoke to them again. “Now that we are no longer broadcasting on an
unsecured channel, you must state your previous name and the nature of your business.”
“I’m sorry,” Etienne said firmly. “I can only divulge that information to Dr. Loxner face to
face.”
“The doctor sees no one these days.”
“He will see me,” Etienne insisted. “I’m not here to seek a favor this time, but to return
one. I have information vital to his continued safety. Certain security organizations know
about his current activities. If he doesn’t see me, I won’t answer for the consequences.”
Another pause from the voice, the longest yet. Finally, in measured tones, it said, “You
may enter.”
A door opened to their right and they found themselves walking down a long corridor
carved from the naked asteroidal rock. The air was breathable but oddly stale, as though
it had been sealed in a crypt away from any life. Their footsteps made dead echoes
against the sterile walls. The silence here went beyond that of a tranquil retreat; it had a
leaden, oppressive quality that bespoke moldering corpses. The overall feeling was not
of someone’s vacation home, but of a long unused mausoleum.
There were cameras all along the way to monitor their progress, and closed doors at
intervals shutting them out of rooms that looked interesting. The dim lighting came from
fluorescent panels on the ceiling. The light panels, the doors, and the cameras were the
only indications of humanity in the lifeless hallway.
Etienne tried opening one of the doors along the way, but it was locked against his
efforts. “Don’t try to go where you’re not invited,” the voice warned them sternly. “You’ll
be told which rooms you may enter.”
“Sorry,” the Duke said. “I was just looking for the lavatory. ”
“Third door on the left,” the voice said coldly. “From now on please make your wishes