“If he’s aboard any of those ships we can find him,” the exec said.
“How many troops could we send, do you think? Six? Ten? A dozen?”
“Ten, certainly. Armed with sidearms and minigrenades. Those civilians in the ships wouldn’t dare stand in their way.”
Harbin felt just the slightest tendril of drowsiness creeping along his veins. It would be good to get a full night’s sleep, he thought. Without dreams.
Aloud, he asked, “And what makes you think that there are nothing but civilians in those ships?”
The exec blinked rapidly, thinking, then replied, “Their manifests show—”
“Do you believe that if Elsinore, for example, were carrying a company of armed mercenaries they would show it on their manifest?”
She gave Harbin a strange look, but said nothing.
He went on, “Why do you think that red-bearded one is so anxious to have us search his ship? It’s an obvious trap. He must have troops there waiting to pounce on us.”
“That’s—” The exec hesitated, then finished, “That’s not likely, sir.”
“No, not likely at all,” Harbin said, grinning lopsidedly at her. “You would have done well against Hannibal.”
“Sir?”
Harbin pushed himself out of the command chair. “I’m going to my quarters for a few minutes. Call me five minutes before their time is up.”
“Yes, sir,” said the exec.
Harbin knew something was wrong. If the drug is burning out of my system I ought to be feeling withdrawal symptoms, he thought. But I’m tired. Drowsy. Did I take the right stuff? I can’t direct a battle in this condition.
Once he popped open the case that held his medications he focused blurrily on the vials still remaining, lined up in a neat row along the inside of the lid. Maybe I’m taking too much, he considered. Overdosing. But I can’t stop now. Not until I’ve got Fuchs. I’ve got to get him.
He ran his fingertips over the smooth plastic cylinders of the medications. Something stronger. Just for the next half hour or so. Then I can relax and get a good long sleep. But right now I need something stronger. Much stronger.
HABITAT CHRYSALIS
Yannis Ritsos was the last of a long line of rebels and poets. Named after a famed Greek forebear, he had been born in Cyprus, lived through the deadly biowar that racked that tortured island, survived the fallout from the nuclear devastation of Israel, and worked his way across the Mediterranean to Spain where, like another Greek artist, he made a living for himself. Unlike El Greco, however, Yanni supported himself by running computer systems that translated languages. He even slipped some of his own poetry into the computers and had them translate his Greek into Spanish, German and English. He was not happy with the results.
He came to Ceres not as a poet, but as a rock rat. Determined to make a fortune in the Asteroid Belt, Yanni talked a fellow Greek businessman into allowing him to ride out to the Belt and try his hand at mining. He never got farther than the Chrysalis habitat, in orbit around Ceres. There he met and married the beautiful Ilona Mikvicius and, instead of going out on a mining ship, remained at Ceres and took a job in the habitat’s communications center.
Sterile since his exposure to the nuclear fallout, totally bald for the same reason, Yanni longed to have a son and keep the family line going. He and Ilona were saving every penny they could scratch together to eventually pay for a cloning procedure. Ilona knew that bearing a cloned fetus was dangerous, but she loved Yanni so much that she was willing to risk it.
So Yannis Ritsos had everything to live for when Dorik Harbin’s ship came to the Chrysalis habitat. He had suffered much, survived much, and endured. He felt that the future looked, if not exactly bright, at least promising. But he was wrong. And it was his own rebellious soul that put an end to his dreams.
“Sir,” the comm tech called out, “someone aboard Elsinore is sending a message to Selene.”
Harbin, fresh from a new injection of stimulant, turned to his weapons technician. “Slag her antennas,” he commanded. “All of them.”