Then he made love to her ardently, furiously. She reveled in his passion, but she found that not even the wildest sex could divert him from his aim. He was going to attack HSS, attack Humphries, extract vengeance for the killings that had been perpetrated. He was going to get himself killed, she was certain.
His singlemindedness frightened Amanda to the depths of her being. Nothing can move him a centimeter away from this, she realized. He’s rushing toward his own death.
The morning of the third day she found an incoming message from IAA headquarters on Earth. A ship had been dispatched to Ceres, carrying a squad of Peacekeeper troops. Their assignment was to arrest Lars Fuchs and return him to Earth for trial on a charge of piracy.
Fuchs smiled grimly when she showed him the message.
“Piracy.” He practically spat the word. “He destroys ships and loots and murders and they say I have no proof. Me they accuse of piracy.”
“Go with them,” Amanda urged. “I’ll go with you. You can tell them that you were in a state of emotional distress. Surely they’ll understand—”
“With Humphries pulling the strings?” he snapped. “They’ll hang me.”
It was hopeless, Amanda admitted.
Fuchs sat in the empty Helvetia warehouse, going over his plan with Nodon.
“It all hinges on the people you’ve recruited,” he said.
Nodon dipped his chin once in acknowledgment.
The two men were sitting at the desk just off the entrance to the warehouse, in a pool of light from a single overhead fluorescent shining in the otherwise darkened cave. The shelves were empty. No one else was there. Beyond the entrance, the tunnel led in a slight downward slope toward the living quarters and life support equipment; in the other direction, to the HSS warehouse and the reception area where incoming personnel and freight arrived and outgoing flights departed.
“You’re certain these men are reliable?” Fuchs asked for the twelfth time that evening.
“Yes,” Nodon replied patiently. “Men and women both; most of them are from families I have known for many years. They are honorable persons and will do what you command.”
“Honorable,” Fuchs murmured. Honor meant that a person would take your money and commit mayhem, even murder, to earn that pay. I’m hiring mercenary killers, he told himself. Just as Humphries has. To fight evil you have to do evil things yourself.
“They understand what they must do?”
Nodon allowed himself a rare smile. “I have explained it all to them many times. They may not speak European languages very well, but they understand what I have told them.”
Fuchs nodded, almost satisfied. Through Nodon he had hired six Asians, four men and two women. Pancho had allowed them to ride to Ceres on an Astro freighter, and now they waited aboard the half-finished habitat orbiting the asteroid. As far as Pancho or anyone else was concerned, they had been recruited to restart construction of the habitat. Only Fuchs and Nodon—and the six themselves—knew better.
“All right,” Fuchs said, struggling against the surge of doubts and worries that churned in his guts. “At midnight, then.”
“Midnight,” Nodon agreed.
With a sardonic smile, Fuchs added, “We’ve got to get this over and done with before the Peacekeeper troops arrive.”
“We will,” Nodon said confidently.
Yes, Fuchs thought, this will be over and done with in a few hours, one way or the other.
The nearest thing to a restaurant on Ceres was the Pub, where mechanical food dispensers standing off in one corner offered packaged snacks and even microwavable full meals, of a sort.
Fuchs made a point of taking Amanda out to dinner that night. The Pub was usually noisy but this particular evening the crowd was hushed; everyone seemed tense with expectation.
That worried Fuchs. Had news of his planned attack leaked out? Humphries’s people could be waiting for him; he could be leading his men into a trap. He mulled over all the possibilities as he picked listlessly at his dinner.
Amanda watched him with worried eyes. “You haven’t been eating right ever since you came back from Selene,” she said, her tone more concerned than accusatory.
“No, I suppose I haven’t.” He tried to make a careless shrug. “I sleep well, though. Thanks to you.”