That’s just like the Humper. Make the other guy jump to his tune. He won’t go after Lars; he’ll make Lars come after him.
What’ll Lars’s reaction be when he finds out Mandy’s going to have a baby? Will that be enough to set him off? Is that why Humphries impregnated Mandy? He’s got one son already, somebody to carry on his gene line. Rumor is the kid’s his clone, for cripes sake. Why’s he need another son?
To kill Lars, that’s why, Pancho answered herself.
What should I do about it? Should I do anything? Warn Lars? Try to help Mandy, show her she’s got somebody she can depend on? Or just stay the hell out of the whole ugly mess?
Pancho gazed out at the tired, worn, slumped ringwall mountains of Alphonsus. They look like I feel, she said to herself. Weary. Worn down.
What should I do? Without thinking about it, she called out, “Decor scheme, deep space.”
The lunar surface abruptly disappeared. Pancho was in the midst of empty space, stars and glowing nebulas and whirling galaxies stretching out into the blackness of infinity.
“Saturn vicinity,” she called.
The ringed planet appeared before her eyes, hovering in emptiness, a splendid, eye-dazzling oblate sphere of delicate pastel colors with those impossible bright-white rings floating around its middle.
That’s where Sis is, Pancho thought. Hundreds of millions of kilometers away.
Abruptly, she shook her head, as if to clear it. “Versailles, Hall of Mirrors,” she called. And instantly was in the French palace, staring at her own reflections.
What should I do about Mandy? she asked herself again. Then a new thought struck her: What do I want to do?
Me. Myself. What do I want to do?
Once Pancho had been a roughneck astronaut, a tomboy who dared farther and played harder than all the others. But ever since her younger sister was struck down by cancer, so many years ago—so many lifetimes ago—Pancho had lived her life for others. Her sister. Then Dan Randolph came along, hired her as an astronaut and, as he lay dying, bequeathed his share of Astro Corporation to her. Ever since, she had been fighting Dan’s fights, striving to hold Astro together, to make it profitable, to keep it out of Humphries’s clutching paws. And now—Amanda?
What about me? she wondered. What do I want to be when I grow up?
She studied her reflection in the nearest mirror and saw beyond the floor-length party skirt and glittering lame blouse, beyond the cosmetic therapies, to the gawky, gangling African-American from west Texas that lay beneath the expensive exterior. What do you want out of life, girl?
Her reflection shook its head at her. Doesn’t matter. You inherited this responsibility from Dan Randolph. It’s on your shoulders now. Mandy, Humphries, even this guy from Nairobi Industries, it’s all part of the game you’re in. Whether you like it or not. What you want doesn’t matter. Not until this game is finished, one way or the other. Especially not now, with the Humper starting to peck away at Astro again. He’s starting the war again. I thought it was all finished and over with eight years ago, but Humphries is starting again. Third freighter in as many weeks, according to this morning’s report. He’s only knocked off unmanned freighters so far, but this is just the beginning. He’s probing to see how I’m gonna react.
And it’s not just Humphries, either, Pancho reminded herself as she walked slowly along the mirrored corridor. It’s the whole danged world. Earth’s just starting to recover from the greenhouse cliff a li’l bit. Raw materials from the Belt are so blasted cheap they’re providing the basis for an economic comeback. But if Humphries gets complete control of the Belt he’ll jack up prices to wherever he wants ’em. He doesn’t care about Earth or anybody besides himself. He wants a monopoly. He wants a goddam empire for himself.
You’ve got responsibilities, lady, she said to her reflection. You got no time to feel sorry for yourself.
“Acropolis,” she commanded, striding back to her bedroom through colonnades of graceful fluted columns, the ancient city of Athens visible beyond them, lying in the hot summer sun beneath a sky of perfect blue.