“I guess we’re not the first to be chopped,” said George. “Lady of the Lake. Aswan . . . four or five others, at least.”
“At least,” Fuchs agreed. “We’ll have to inform the IAA of this. Maybe now they’ll start a real investigation.”
“Dinner first,” George said. “Me stomach’s growlin’.”
“A shower first,” Fuchs corrected. “Then you can eat.”
George laughed. “Suits me.” Raising his voice, he added, “If we can get a certain Asian bloke out of the fookin’ shower stall.”
Harbin was glistening with perspiration as he exercised on the ergonomics bike. Shanidar was cruising at one-sixth g, the same grav level as the Moon, but Harbin’s military upbringing unsparingly forced him to maintain his conditioning to Earth-normal standards. As he pedaled away and pumped at the hand bars, he watched the display screen on the bulkhead in front of him.
It was a martial arts training vid, one that Harbin had seen dozens of times. But each time he picked up something new, some different little wrinkle that he had overlooked before or forgotten. After his mandatory twenty klicks on the bike, he would rerun the vid and go through its rigorous set of exercises.
But his mind kept coming back to the central problem he faced. How can I prevent Fuchs from informing Ceres of what happened to Waltzing Matilda? He’s already sent one brief message to his wife. Once he beams out their whole story the IAA will launch a full investigation.
He almost smiled. If that happens, my career in piracy is finished. Grigor’s superiors might even decide that it would be safer to terminate me than to pay me off.
It’s imperative, then, that I silence Starpower as quickly as possible. But how? I can’t jam their transmissions; I don’t have the proper equipment aboard.
I could accelerate, get to them at top speed, knock them out before they get a message back to Ceres. But then I’d be too low on fuel to get back to a tanker. I’d have to signal Grigor to send a tanker to me.
And what better way to be rid of me than to let me drift alone out here until I starve to death or the recyclers break down? That way Grigor and his HSS bosses get total silence, for free.
With a grim shake of his head, Harbin decided he would continue on his present course and speed. He’d catch up to Starpower and destroy the ship. Fuchs would die. Harbin only hoped that he could finish the job before Fuchs told Ceres what was going on.
That’s in the lap of the gods, he thought. It’s a matter of chance. A quatrain from the Rubaiyat came to him:
Ah, Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, Would not we shatter it to bits—and then Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!
Yes, Harbin thought. That would be pleasant, to shatter this world to bits and rebuild it into something better. To have a woman to stand beside me, to love me, to be my heart’s desire.
But that is fantasy, he told himself sternly. Reality is this godforsaken emptiness, this dreary ship. Reality is studying ways to kill.
With a deep, heartfelt breath, he said silently, Reality is this damned bike, going nowhere but taking all my energy to get there.
CHAPTER 28
Fuchs sat in the galley, nearly stunned with amazement as he watched George wolf down enough food to feed an ordinary man for a week. The crewman, Nodon, ate more sparingly but still put away a good pile of rations.
“… then after he slagged our antennas,” George was saying through a mouthful of veggieburger and reconstituted potatoes, “he zapped the fookin’ thruster nozzle and for good measure popped our propellant tanks.”
“He was very thorough,” Fuchs said.
George nodded. “I figure he musta thought we were still inside the hab module. Nodon and me played doggo until he left. By then, old Matilda was driftin’ in the general direction of Alpha Centauri.”
“He assumed you were dead.”
“Or as good as.”
“You’ve got to tell all this to the IAA,” said Fuchs. “If we’d’a had our cutting laser on board I would’ve shot back at th’ bastard. He caught us with the laser sittin’ on the ‘roid and our power pack bein’ recharged.”