Pancho was almost grateful when the cable car suddenly lurched violently and then began to fall, slowly, with the inexorable horror of a nightmare, to crash nose-first into the dusty, cracked, crater-pocked ground.
Martin Humphries leaned back as his desk chair molded itself to the contours of his spine. He sat alone in his office, just off the master bedroom in his mansion, squinting at the string of numbers and accompanying text that hovered in midair above his wide, expansive desk. He steepled his fingers before his face as he studied the reports from his accounting department. Profits were down slightly, but he had expected that. Four ships had been lost in the past quarter, three of them automated ore freighters, one of them a logistics ship that had been seized, looted, and then gutted by Lars Fuchs. The crew had been set adrift in their escape pod. The attack had taken place close enough to Ceres for them to be rescued within forty-eight hours.
Humphries snapped his fingers and the report dissolved.
“Fuchs,” he muttered. The sonofabitch is still out there in the Belt, drifting around like some Flying Dutchman, getting his pitiful little jolts out of knocking off HSS vessels. And that damned greasemonkey Pancho is helping him.
Humphries smiled to himself. Well, enjoy yourself while you can,
Fuchs. The end is near. And meanwhile, I’ve got your ex-wife pregnant.
Pancho is a different problem. Tougher nut to crack. But I’ll get her. I’ll bleed Astro white until their board of directors boots her ass out the door. Then I’ll offer them a merger deal that they can’t afford to refuse. I’ll take Astro Corporation; it’s only a matter of time.
Getting up from the chair and walking slowly around his desk, Humphries laughed out loud. As soon as Amanda gets home from her shopping or whatever the hell she’s doing today, I’ll pop her into bed. Just because she’s carrying my son doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy her.
“Holowindow,” he called out, “give me a view of the Asteroid Belt.”
The window on the left wall of the office immediately displayed a painting by Davis of a lumpy, potato-brown asteroid with a smaller chip of rock floating near it.
“No, a photo. Real-time telescopic view.”
The holowindow went blank for a second, then showed a stretch of star-flecked darkness. One of the pinpoints of light was noticeably brighter than any of the others. The single word ceres flashed briefly next to it.
“He’s out there somewhere,” Humphries muttered to himself. “But not for much longer.”
Humphries went back to his desk and called up the latest progress report from his special security detail in the Belt. The base on Vesta was complete, and twenty-four attack craft were on their way to take up stations around the Belt. All of HSS’s freighters were being equipped with military crews and weapons. The costs were draining the corporation’s profits, but sooner or later Fuchs would be found and destroyed.
In the meantime, Humphries thought, it’s time to make my move against Astro. Time to take Pancho down. That greasemonkey’s blocked my takeover of Astro long enough.
She doesn’t understand the first principles of economics, Humphries told himself. Supply and demand. Astro is cutting our throats, undercut-ting our price for raw materials from the asteroids. And that damned guttersnipe will keep on undercutting me until I wipe her off the board completely. There isn’t room for two players out in the Belt. The only way to make economic sense out there is to have just one corporation in charge of everything. And that one’s got to be Humphries Space Systems.
Yet his thoughts returned to Fuchs. I’ve given the sonofabitch eight years. I promised Amanda I wouldn’t harm him, and for eight years I’ve lived up to that promise. And what has Fuchs done? He sticks it to me every time he can. Instead of being grateful that I didn’t kill him, he kicks me in the balls every chance he gets. Well, eight years is long enough. It’s damned expensive trying to track him down, but I’m going to get that bastard, the sooner the better.
He’s smart, though. Clever enough to hide out in the Belt and let his fellow rock rats help him. And Pancho, too; she’s helping him all she can. I’ve got to get him out of hiding. Out into the open, where my people can destroy him.