The Diamond Moon (26 page)

 

Hawkins turned away in anguish, unable to bear Mays’s unruffled complacency. Hawkins could not know that beneath his calm exterior, Mays was a desperate man. Had Troy done this? He’d
killed
her!

Forster, meanwhile, had been studying his adversary. “Well, you’re here with us again. So we’ll just go fetch Ms. Mitchell and . . . hold you both captive, as you put it, until we get back to Ganymede—or until the Space Board arrive. Whichever comes first. Then let the bureaucracy sort it all out.”

“Fine. You’ll never
find
the Ambassador again, of course.”

 

Forster’s eyebrows shot up. “Never find the Ambassa-dor?”

“After I took the photogram views I wanted, I moved it.” Mays paused just long enough to let the news sink in. “Oh, I
do
exaggerate. You
might
find it again, with enough time. But I assure you it won’t be easy.”

“Pray, what was the point of that?” Forster inquired civ-illy.

“My
estimate
of the situation has not changed since the last time we talked, Professor,” said Mays. “You have ille-gally held me and my associate, Ms. Mitchell,
incommuni-cado
.” It was becoming his favorite word. “Everything I’ve done has been in my . . . in our self defense. I want merely to communicate the news of this extraordinary discovery. I claim it as our right.”

Forster slowly reddened.
“Sir
Randolph,” he said acidly, “you’re not only an attempted murderer but an unmitigated crook, and accordingly I’ve no compunction left in dealing with you.”

 

“What’s that supposed to
mean,
sir?” Mays inquired cheerily.

 

“I’ll tell you shortly. Tony. Blake. You, Bill. Come with me.”

 

They caucused in the corridor, outside the lock to the equipment bay—in the same place Mays and Marianne had plotted their downfall.

 

“I want to go with Blake,” Hawkins said hotly, after hear-ing Forster’s plan. “There’s no reason I can’t go.”

 

“There is, Bill, which I will presently explain to you. I understand your feelings. But if you do what I suggest, you’ll have a much better chance of, mm . . . getting what you want.”

 

So it was that they sent Blake out alone.

 

Blake piloted the Manta to within half a dozen meters of the lonely Moon Cruiser. Even in the milky fog he found it readily enough by its radar signature.

Blake was wearing his spacesuit sealed, and having prepared for the event by leaving the hatch of the Manta open, he slipped free of the craft and pushed himself gently through the white night toward the burned black capsule. He had a moment’s rush of sympathy for the lonely young woman inside who, despite Mays’s assertions, could not see out, could not hear anything, did not know that her capsule was even now drifting out of a narrow and rapidly dimin-ishing zone of radiation safety.

Mays must have planned it that way, Blake thought; he’d meant to let her fry. He meant to leave no stone unburied.

 

He clipped an acoustic coupler to the hull. “Marianne, this is Blake. Can you hear me?”

 

“Who is that?” Her voice was full of strength, and of fear.

 

“Blake Redfield. Since your commlink is out, I’m here as a go-between. For the negotiations, I guess you’d call them. What you say can be heard on the
Ventris
.”

 

“Where are you?”

 

“Right outside. I’ve clipped an acoustic coupler to your hull. It’s feeding through the Manta’s radiolink to the
Ven-tris
.”

 

“What are you planning to do? Where’s Randolph?”

 

“I’m not going to do anything. Whatever happens to Sir Randolph is between you and Professor Forster.”

 

“I won’t tell you where the statue is,” she said defiantly.

 

“Whatever you say. I’m not in on that; you’ll have to talk to the professor. I’m going back to the sub.”

“Ms. Mitchell, do you hear me?” Forster’s voice intruded on the link, coming through clearly. “Sir Randolph has ex-plained what he’s done, Marianne. All of us feel strongly that all of this . . . complication is completely unnecessary. We have treated you both as colleagues, and as such we still regard you. We’ve asked only that Sir Randolph obey the most basic rules of scholarship and ethical conduct.”
“Does that mean you’re willing to call it off?” Marianne asked. “I hope so. I’m getting so . . . bored.”

“Ms. Mitchell, I would like you to give Redfield permis-sion to tow your capsule back here to the
Ventris
. In a very little time, we may have to move our ship. I’m concerned for your safety.”

 

“I
won’t
tell you where the statue is,” she said. “Not un-less Randolph tells me to.”

 

“He’s not willing to do that,” said the professor.

 

“Well . . .” Her sigh was almost audible through the jury-rigged sound link. “No.”

“It’s apparent that you don’t take me seriously,” Forster said sternly. “Therefore I’ve arranged a rather drastic dem-onstration—to indicate that I at least am serious. In order to have his way, Sir Randolph has exposed you and the rest of us to extreme dangers. Now it’s his turn.”

“What do you mean?” she replied. She tried to sound merely cautious, though her apprehension was apparent in her voice.

 

“I’m not sure how much you know about celestial me-chanics, but if your onboard computer is functioning at all, I’m sure it will confirm what I’m about to tell you.”

 

“Just say what you mean, please.”

“I’m trying to impress upon you our curious, indeed our precarious position. If your videoplate were functioning—alas, another deficit you might want to ask Sir Randolph about when you see him next— you would have only to look at it to remind yourself how close to Jupiter we are. And I need hardly remind
you
that Jupiter has by far the most intense gravitational field of all the planets.”

She was quiet a moment. Then she said, “Go on.”

He was alert to the edge in her voice, and continued with less condescension. “You, and we, and what’s left of Amal-thea are going around Jupiter in a bit more than twelve hours. A well-known theorem states that if a body falls from an orbit to the center of attraction, it will take point one seven seven of a period to make the drop. In other words, anything falling from here to Jupiter would reach the center of the planet in a little over two hours. As I said earlier, your computer, if it is functioning, will confirm this.”

There was a long pause before Marianne again said, “Go on,” in a voice that seemed drained of expression.

 

“A fall to the center of Jupiter is of course a theoretical case. Anything dropped from our altitude would reach the upper atmosphere of Jupiter in a considerably shorter time.” When she did not immediately reply Forster added, a bit viciously, “I hope I’m not boring you.” “Uh,” said Marianne, then, “Just get on with it.”

“We’ve worked out the actual time, and it’s about an hour and thirty-five minutes. You’ve worked with us long enough, Ms. Mitchell, to notice that as the mass of Amalthea boils away and the moon shrinks beneath us, what was a weak gravitational field to begin with has grown considerably weaker. Computer tells us that escape velocity is now only about ten meters per second. Anything thrown away at that speed will never come back. Your own experience will confirm the truth of that, I think.”

“Yes, of course.” Her voice revealed no impatience, for she was quick and may already have seen where Forster was leading.

“I’ll come to the point. We propose to take Sir Randolph for a little spacewalk, until he’s at the subJupiter point—immediately under Jupiter, that is. We’ve disabled his suit’s maneuvering unit. We can operate it, but he can’t. We’re going to, ah, launch him forth. We’ll be prepared to retrieve him with the
Ventris
as soon as you give us the detailed directions to the whereabouts of the statue, which Sir Randolph himself assures us that you have.”

Marianne hesitated, and then she said, “I want to talk to Randolph.”

 

“I’m sorry, that’s impossible.”

 

Blake, listening in, thought Forster’s eager anticipation was almost too evident; this was the moment he’d been waiting for.

 

“Is Bill on the flight deck?” she asked, oh so softly.

 

“Hawkins? Mm, actually, yes . . .”

 

“Let me talk to him.”

 

“Well, if you . . . if you wish.”

 

Hawkins came on the link. His voice was frantic with guilt and fear. “I objected, Marianne. I’ll lodge a formal protest, I promise. But Forster is adamant. He . . .”

Forster cut him off angrily. “Enough of that, Hawkins. And no more digressions, Ms. Mitchell. After what I’ve told you, I’m sure you appreciate that time is vital. An hour and thirty-five minutes will go by rather quickly, but if you could observe what is happening to Amalthea, you would agree that we have little more time than that in which to confirm any information you choose to give us.” “You’re bluffing,” said Marianne.

Blake was alarmed. This wasn’t according to plan.

 

Then she went on. “I don’t believe you’d do anything of the kind. Your crew won’t let you.”

 

Blake relaxed. She was trying to convey toughness and doing a creditable job of it, but mingled horror and disbelief underlay her words.

 

The professor emitted an expressive sigh. “Too bad. Mr. McNeil, Mr. Groves, please take the prisoner and proceed as instructed.”

 

McNeil’s solemn “Aye-aye, sir” was heard in the background.

 

“What are you doing now?” Marianne demanded.

 

“Sir Randolph and friends are going for a little walk,” Forster said. “Too bad you can’t see this for yourself.”

Blake’s cue: he broke in excitedly. “Professor, what’s to keep Marianne from thinking this is all a colossal bluff? She’s gotten to know you in the past few days—you saved her life, after all, and she doesn’t believe you’d really kill the guy, throw him into Jupiter. And even if
you
would, she knows Angus and Tony—she probably doesn’t think
they’d
do it.” Pause . . . “Right, Marianne?”

She said nothing.

 

Blake went on, “Well, she probably figures she’s seen through the bluff, and we’re left looking mighty foolish.”

 

“What do you suggest?” Forster said.

“I think we ought to let her come out of that tin can and see for herself. She knows we’re not interested in grabbing
her
—if we were, I could have towed her all the way back to the
Ventris
by now. And she’d never have known it.”

That suggestion took about four seconds to sink in—little more than the time it took Marianne to seal her helmet. All the explosive bolts of the capsule’s hatch blew off at once and the square hatch went tumbling straight off into heaven. The massive capsule itself recoiled and drifted slowly backward as Marianne clambered out of the open hatch.

Evidently she’d already determined that the Moon Cruiser was a useless relic of games past. The new game would be played here in vacuum; no matter who won or lost, whoever went home would be going home in the
Ven-tris
, if not in a Space Board cutter.

She looked around, noting the spiraling umbilical cable that connected the acoustic link on the capsule to the Manta, which drifted a few meters off—Blake’s face was vis-ible through the sphere, but she spared him hardly a glance—and noting, too, the distant bright reflection of the
Michael Ventris
floating above the glowing fog. The vast curve of Jupiter rose above them all, turning the tendrils of mist to fleshy pink in its backlight.

Three white doll-like figures were just then leaving the
Ventris
’s open bay.

 

“She’s out, Professor,” said Blake.

 

“Now that you’re not shielded in the capsule, Ms. Mitch-ell, can you hear me in your suitcomm?”

 

“Yes. I hear you.”

“If you use the magnifying visor plate on your suit hel-met, you’ll be able to reassure yourself that Angus and Tony aren’t dragging an empty suit between them. They’ll be over the horizon in a minute, but you’ll be able to see Sir Ran-dolph as he begins to, er . . . ascend.”

Marianne said nothing, but she reached up and pulled the visor over her faceplate.

Time seemed to stop then. The aether was silent. Forster said nothing; Marianne said nothing but only watched the sky; Blake lay in the Manta saying nothing, apparently studying his fingernails, deliberately sparing Marianne his curious stare.

She kept her silence. Was she waiting to see how far the professor would go?

Amalthea’s diffuse horizon was ridiculously close. Mar-ianne made a tiny involuntary gesture that upset her equi-librium; she had seen the exhaust of McNeil’s and Grove’s maneuvering systems drawing thin, straight lines against the orange backcloth of Jupiter. She adjusted quickly, in time to see the three figures rising into space.

As she watched, they separated. Two of them decelerated and started to fall back. The other went on ascending help-lessly toward the ominous bulk of Jupiter.

 

“He’ll die,” she whispered. “You’ve thrown him into the radiation belt.”

Forster said nothing—perhaps he hadn’t heard her—so Blake took it upon himself to allay that particular horror. “We’ll take care of that on the ship. We’ve got the enzymes to clean up the dead cells, repair the damaged ones. You know from your own experience that even twelve hours’ exposure won’t kill you if you get treatment.”

“Twelve hours . . .”

“Yeah,” Blake said, not without a hint of satisfaction, “Mays knew
that
when he crashed the two of you. He counted on us to save your lives. And we did.” Almost im-mediately, Blake regretted his words. This was not the time to discourage her sympathy for Mays.

Forster’s voice came over the link. “I hope I don’t need to impress upon you the urgency of the situation. As I said, the time of fall from our orbit to the upper atmosphere of Jupiter is about ninety-five minutes. But of course, if one waited even half that time . . . it would be much too late.”

Marianne floated there in space, arms akimbo, head tilted back, and Blake thought that even in obvious anguish, swathed in a bulky spacesuit, she was an image of dignity and natural grace. Watching her, Blake sighed. He felt sorry for her. And for Bill Hawkins. Love gets people into the worst tangles.