Evidence, Fuchs thought as he studied the flight data on his main comm screen. If I can locate Waltzing Matilda and find evidence that the ship was attacked, deliberately destroyed, then I can get the authorities Earthside to step in and do a thorough investigation of all these missing ships.
Sitting alone on the bridge of Starpower, he tapped the coordinates of the asteroid George had been working into his navigation computer. But his hand hovered over the key that would engage the program.
Do I want the IAA to know where I’m going? He asked himself. The answer was a clear no. Whoever is destroying the prospectors’ and miners’ ships must have exact information about their courses and positions. They can use the telemetry data that each ship sends out automatically to track the ships down.
I must run silently, Fuchs concluded. Not even Amanda will know where I am. The thought of the risk bothered him; the reason for sending out the telemetry signal was so the IAA would know where each ship was. But what good is that? Fuchs asked himself. When a ship gets in trouble, no one comes out to help. The Belt is too enormous. If I run into a problem I’m on my own. All the telemetry data will do is tell the IAA where I was when I died.
It took the better part of a day for Fuchs to take out Starpower’s telemetry transmitter and install it into the little emergency vehicle. Each ship carried at least one escape pod; six people could live in one for a month or more. An example of so-called safety regulations that looked important to the IAA and were in fact useless, ridiculous. An escape pod makes sense for spacecraft working the Earth/Moon region. A rescue ship can reach them in a few days, often in a matter of mere hours. But out here in the Belt, forget about rescue. The distances were too large and the possible rescue ships too few. The prospectors knew they were on their own as soon as they left Ceres.
Fuchs grinned to himself as he thought about all the other uses the emergency vehicles had been put to: extra storage capacity; extra crew quarters; micrograv love nest, when detached from the spinning ship so the pod could be weightless.
But you, he said silently as he installed the telemetry transmitter into Starpower’s escape pod, you will be a decoy. They will think you are me, while I head silently for George’s asteroid.
Once he returned to the bridge and sat in the command chair, he thought of Amanda. Should I tell her what I’m about to do? He wanted to, but feared that his message would be overheard by Humphries’s people. It’s obvious that they have infiltrated the IAA, Fuchs thought. Perhaps the flight controllers on Ceres are secretly taking money from him.
If something happens to the escape pod, Amanda will think I’ve been killed. How can I warn her, let her know what I’m doing?
Then he felt an icy hand grip his heart. What would Amanda do if she thought I was dead? Would she mourn me? Try to avenge me? Or would she run to Humphries? That’s what he wants. That’s why he wants me dead. Will Amanda give in to him if she thinks I’m out of the way?
He hated himself for even thinking such a thought. But he could not escape it. His face twisted into an angry frown, teeth clenched so hard it made his jaws ache, he banged out the keyboard commands that ejected the pod into a long, parabolic trajectory that would send it across the Belt. It took an effort of will, but he did not send a message back to his wife.
I’m alone now, Fuchs thought as he directed Starpower toward the asteroid where Big George had last been heard from.
Diane Verwoerd was reading her favorite Bible passage: the story of the crooked steward who cheated his boss and made himself a nice feather bed for his retirement.
Whenever she had qualms about what she was doing, she called up Luke 16:1-13. It reassured her. Very few people understood the real message of the story, she thought as she read the ancient words on the wallscreen of her apartment.