“Both Astro and HSS are actually hiring our own people to help them in the fighting,” Nobu added. “We’re making money from their war.”
A slight hint of a smile cracked Saito’s stern visage.
Encouraged, Nobu went on, “I believe it’s time to consider how and when we step in.”
“Not yet.”
“If we throw our support to one side or the other, that side will win the war, undoubtedly.”
“Yes, I realize that,” said the older man. “But it is too early. Let them exhaust themselves further. Already both Astro and HSS are running up huge losses because of this war. Let them bleed more red ink before we make our move.”
Nobu dipped his chin in agreement. Then he asked, “Which of them do you think we should support? When the time comes, of course.”
“Neither.”
“Neither? But I thought—”
Saito raised an imperious hand. “When the proper moment comes, when both Astro and Humphries are tottering on the brink of collapse, we will sweep in and take command of the Belt. Our mercenary units now serving them will show their true colors. The flying crane of Yamagata will stretch its wings across the entire Asteroid Belt, and over Selene as well.”
Nobu gasped at his father’s grand vision.
He should have been enjoying a restful vacation at Hotel Luna, but Lars Fuchs was not.
In his guise as Karl Manstein, Fuchs was spending the expense-account money Pancho had advanced him as if there was a never-ending supply of it. In truth, it was dwindling like a sand castle awash in the inrushing tide. Hotel Luna may have been threadbare, narrowly avoiding bankruptcy on the trickle of tourists coming to Selene, but its prices were still five-star. Fresh fish from the hotel’s own aquaculture ponds; rental wings for soaring like an eagle in the Grand Plaza on one’s own muscular strength; guided walks across the cracked and pitted floor of the Alphonsus ringwall, where the wreckage of the primitive Ranger 9 spacecraft sat beneath a protective dome of clear glassteel; all these things cost money, and then some.
Even though Fuchs/Manstein took in none of the tourist attractions and ate as abstemiously as possible, a suite at Hotel Luna was outrageously expensive. He spent every waking moment studying the layout of Selene, its tunnels and living spaces, its offices and workshops, the machinery systems that supplied the underground city with air to breathe and potable water. In particular, he tried to find out all he could about the lowermost level of Selene, the big natural grotto that Martin Humphries had transformed into a lush garden and luxurious mansion for himself.
About the mansion he could learn nothing. Humphries’s security maintained a close guard over its layout and life support systems. Fuchs had to be satisfied with memorizing every detail of the plumbing and electrical power systems that led to the grotto. There was no information available on the piping and conduits once they entered Humphries’s private preserve. Perhaps that will be enough, Fuchs thought. Perhaps that will do.
He kept at his task doggedly, filling every moment of each day with his studies, telling himself a hundred times an hour that he would find a way to kill Martin Humphries.
In the night, when he was so exhausted from his work that he could no longer keep his eyes open, the rage returned anew. He and Amanda had roomed at the Hotel Luna once. They had made love in a bedroom like the one he now was in. During the rare moments when he was actually able to sleep he dreamed of Amanda, relived their passion. And awoke to find himself shamed and sticky from his brief dreams.
I’m only a kilometer or so from Humphries, Fuchs told himself over and again. Close enough to kill him. Soon. Soon.
TORCH SHIP SAMARKAMND
“Fourteen ships, sir. Confirmed,” said Harbin’s pilot. The bridge of Samarkand was crowded with the pilot, communications technician, weapons tech, the executive officer, and Harbin, seated in the command chair, all of them in bulky, awkward space suits. The navigation officer had been banished to a rearward cabin, connected to the bridge by the ship’s intercom. “A formidable fleet,” Harbin murmered.