“Now,” she agreed.
Humphries was pacing across the plush carpeting when she arrived at his quarters. He had changed from his flight coveralls to a comfortably loose royal blue pullover and expensive genuine twill slacks. As the doors slid shut behind her, he stopped in front of a low couch and faced her squarely.
“Do you know who this Dorn creature is?”
Elverda answered, “Only what he has told us.”
“I’ve checked him out. My staff in the ship has a complete file on him. He’s the butcher who led the Chrysalis massacre, six years ago.”
“He…”
“Eleven hundred men, women and children. Slaughtered. He was the man who commanded the attack.”
“He said he had been a soldier.”
“A mercenary. A cold-blooded murderer. He worked for me once, long ago, but he was working for Yamagata then. The Chrysalis was the rock rats’ habitat. When its population refused to give up Lars Fuchs, Yamagata put him in charge of a squad to convince them to cooperate. He killed them all; slashed the habitat to shreds and let them all die.”
Elverda felt shakily for the nearest chair and sank into it Her legs seemed to have lost all their strength.
“His name was Harbin then. Dorik Harbin.”
“Wasn’t he brought to trial?”
“No. He ran away. Disappeared. I always thought Yamagata helped to hide him. They take care of their own, they do. He must have changed his name afterwards. Nobody would hire the butcher, not even Yamagata.”
“His face… half his body…” Elverda felt terribly weak, almost faint. “When …?”
“Must have been after he ran away. Maybe it was an attempt to disguise himself.”
“And now he is working for you again.” She wanted to laugh at the irony of it, but did not have the strength.
“He’s got us trapped on this chunk of rock! There’s nobody else here except the three of us.”
“You have your staff in your ship. Surely they would come if you summoned them.”
“His security squad’s been ordered to keep everybody except you and me off the asteroid. He gave those orders.”
“You can countermand them, can’t you?”
For the first time since she had met Martin Humphries, he looked unsure of himself. “I wonder,” he said.
“Why?” Elverda asked. “Why is he doing this?”
“That’s what I intend to find out.” Humphries strode to the phone console. “Harbin!” he called. “Dorik Harbin. Come to my quarters at once.”
Without even a microsecond’s delay the phone’s computer-synthesized voice replied, “Dorik Harbin no longer exists. Transferring your call to Dorn.”
Humphries’s gray eyes snapped at the phone’s blank screen.
“Dorn is not available at present,” the phone’s voice said. “He will call for you in eleven hours and thirty-two minutes.”
“What do you mean, Dorn’s not available?” Humphries shouted at the blank phone screen. “Get me the officer on watch aboard the Humphries Eagle.”
“All exterior communications are inoperable at the present time,” replied the phone.
“That’s impossible!”
“All exterior communications are inoperable at the present time,” the phone repeated, unperturbed.
Humphries stared at the empty screen, then turned slowly toward Elverda Apacheta. “He’s cut us off. We’re trapped in here.”
SIX YEARS EARLIER
SELENE: ASTRO CORPORATION
HEADQUARTERS
Pancho Lane tilted back in her sculpted chair, fingers steepled in front of her face, hiding any display of the suspicion she felt for the man sitting before her desk.
One of the two major things she had learned in her years as chief of Astro Corporation was to control her emotions. Once she would have gotten out of her chair, strode around the desk, hauled this lying turkey buzzard up by the scruff of his neck and booted his butt all the way back to Nairobi, where he claimed to come from. Now, though, she simply sat back in cold silence, hearing him out.
“A strategic alliance would be of great benefit to both of us,” he was saying, in his deeply resonant baritone. “After all, we are going to be neighbors here on the Moon, aren’t we?”
Physically, he was a hunk and a half, Pancho admitted to herself. If lie’s here as bait, at least they sent something worth biting on. Strong, broad cheekbones and a firm jawline. Deeply dark eyes that sparkled at her when he smiled, which he did a lot. Brilliant white teeth. Skin so black it almost looked purple. Conservative gray business cardigan, but under it peeped a colorfully patterned vest and a soft yellow shirt opened at the collar to reveal a single chain of heavy gold.