The Ganymede Club (23 page)

"Spook? I thought you said you'd heard from him."

"I did. He's on Callisto. He didn't say what he's doing there, and he didn't say when he's coming back. I'll murder him next time I see him."

"Don't say that word—you'll make me think you mean it." His hands were still on her neck, but their touch had changed. Conner was making a circle with his hands, all the way around her throat, then running his fingers up to touch the sensitive skin below her ears and play with her earlobes. "It's too late for you to be working, Madam Haldane. Aren't you ready to take a break?"

"Don't you think of anything else?"

"I try not to. Sometimes my work gets in the way." He was lifting Lola to her feet and turning her to face him. "Before dinner, or after?"

"Would you consider both?" She moved willingly against him, reaching around to rub the muscles of his back and rib cage. It made her feel almost guilty, the pleasure that she took in his touch and in touching him. What she was planning to do to him—had already started to do—ought to make her feel much more guilty. It didn't because it was all a game, part of the fun of lovemaking.

Haldanes aren't infallible, she thought, but we can still do some pretty amazing things that we don't talk about.
Without
using drugs.

Hypnotic blocks and spoken keys were the least of them. She could hardly wait to see Conner's face when she discovered what he was up to, and told him all about it.

* * *

Computers were easy. People were hard. Spook had thought about his own epitaph and decided how it should read:
Here lies Spook Belman. He was interested in ideas, things, and people, in that order.

But sometimes you had no choice except to deal with people. Here he was, heading for the place on Callisto that, according to Lola's files, Bryce Sonnenberg came from. He had no idea what to do next. The central address system provided an exact location on Callisto, but it didn't say one thing about the nature of the place itself.

Spook sought inspiration in his surroundings as he was carried the final few hundred meters. This didn't look like the approach to any residential area, even by Callisto's modest standards. The walls on either side were featureless—bare metal and plastic. At the end of the tunnel stood two massive doors, and in front of them was a funny-looking little house. Odder yet, inside that house he could see a guard—not a machine, but an actual human in a dark-green uniform.

He wandered along the last fifty meters, staring at the great doors. There were no handles on them and no way to see how they might be opened.

"What do you want?" The guard was leaning out over a half-door that came only up to his waist.

"Nothing." Spook studied the man. He was maybe ten years older than Spook, with dark round eyes and a double chin.

"Go away then."

Spook nodded, but it seemed to him that anybody who had to stand all day in a guardhouse doing nothing must be out of his mind with boredom. And probably not all that smart. Instead of obeying, Spook pointed at the doors. "What's inside there?"

"None of your business."

"It looks like a prison."

"Well, it isn't." The uniformed guard gave Spook a superior smile. "So now you can go away."

"I'm not doing any harm." Spook gaped again at the doors. "If it's not a prison in there, what is it then?"

"None of your business." And then, when Spook still showed no sign of leaving, "Look, what are you doing here?"

"Nothing." Spook shrugged. "I just came along this way and I wondered—why the big doors?"

The guard studied Spook's earnest, gawky face and his pipe-stem arms and legs. The temptation was too much. "It's worse than a prison," he said slowly. "Much worse. If you knew what was inside there, your flesh would creep."

"Dead people?" Spook moved two paces closer.

"Worse than that." The guard leaned confidentially over the half-door. "You want to know what's in there? Well, I'll tell you. You know about the war?"

That was like asking Spook if he knew his own name. He controlled himself, and nodded. "Uh-huh."

"Well, during the war the Belt colonies were hit worse than anywhere else. Nearly everybody got killed. A few people escaped on ships, only most of 'em were in terrible shape. See, the Belt had been doing
experiments
, experiments on humans. When people out here in the Jupiter system saw what was coming in on some of the ships, they set up a special refugee camp. And that's what this is."

"That all?" Spook snorted. "I don't think that's scary, just some stupid refugee camp for Belters."

"Ah, that's because you've never seen 'em. I have. I've seen 'em arrive." The guard lowered his voice. "People that weren't people at all. People missing bits of them. Others all stretched out, arms over here and legs over there, just connected together by bundles of neural fibers. Some of them were brain-shocked so bad they had no idea who they were or where they were, and they'd wander round 'til they starved to death if no one took care of them. Those doors, see, they're not to stop
you
getting
in
—they're to stop the things inside getting
out.
"

The guard straightened up. In the distance behind Spook there was the hum of an electric motor. He turned and saw a runabout car approaching with a single passenger.

"Now you know," the guard said. "So scat."

"I thought you said the doors aren't to keep me out. So why can't I go in?"

"The doors keep them
in
and they keep
you
out. Now get out of here."

The guard was stepping forward to give a smart salute. Spook saw a woman wearing a dark-green uniform with gold on the lapels. She nodded to the guard as the car passed. The big doors were opening automatically.

"You're letting
her
in," Spook complained.

"Well, I have to, don't I?" The guard stepped back into the little gatehouse and sat down. "Even if I didn't, she has her own gate controller. That's Dr. Isobel Busby. She runs the whole place, goes anywhere anytime. You don't, though. So scoot. I got work to do."

There was no sign of it, but Spook sensed that he would not be offered any more information. He gave it one last try. "Does this place have a name?"

"Of course it does. It's the Isobel Busby Sanctuary for War Victims." The guard was on his feet again, and again Spook heard from behind him the hum of an electric car.

"And I'll tell you one last time," the guard went on, brusque finality in his voice. The arrival of two bosses in a row was making him nervous. "This whole thing is none of your business. So get yourself right out of here, sharpish, before I come over there and do something about it."

15

A competent man does not merely follow his instructions; he leads them.

Jinx had heard through Alicia that she and Cayuga saw no threat at all in Spook Belman or Rustum Battachariya. They were mere children in an adult situation, and they could be no more than a distraction from the real problem.

Jinx was not so sure. With the information that he had, his job was probably finished, but he had seen the light of intelligence in two sets of young eyes. At the first opportunity he had, almost by reflex, tapped into Spook's data line and the access codes to the Bat Cave. He would be notified in real time whenever there was a conversation between Spook and Bat.

Which, according to the tiny signal processor in Jinx's left ear, was happening right now. He eased away from Lola's sleeping body, sat up in the gloom, and reached for his watch.

It was much later than he expected. Something strange happened to him when he was with Lola. After they made love, he lost hours and hours in dream-filled sleep. He didn't remember those dreams when he woke up, but he felt tired and uncomfortable.

He slipped into his clothes and rapidly wrote on her console,
Sorry, I had to go—work beckons. See you tomorrow. Love you, Conner.

He locked Lola's door as he left. His office, with its tape recorder and scrambled circuit decoder, was just along the corridor. By the time that Jinx reached it, Spook's call had been completed and Bat was on the line.

A Bat who sounded none too pleased.

"You realize," he was saying, "that a more irritating message than the one that you sent from Callisto could scarcely be devised."

"I didn't want to send information over an open line."

"You certainly succeeded. Would it now be too much to ask what you discovered on Callisto?"

Bat, with Jinx as an interested but silent listener, heard Spook's summary of his two days away with no more than an occasional grunt. "Isobel Busby," Bat said at last, "and the Busby Sanctuary for War Victims. Hmph."

"Yeah. But I couldn't get in there, and I didn't get to talk to Busby."

"I am not sure that it would help if you had. I assume that you recognized the name?"

"Sure I did. You think I'm some kind of idiot? Don't answer that. Isobel Busby is in Bryce Sonnenberg's files, one of the doctors who recommended that he come to Ganymede and seek the assistance of a haldane."

"Precisely. So, even without access to the Busby Sanctuary or to its eponymous head, I believe that we are in a position to make a reasonable reconstruction of events. We can also pinpoint, much more clearly than before, the central mystery."

"Agreed. That's why I came right back. You want to take first shot?"

"Certainly. Bryce Sonnenberg has not been on Callisto for the past twenty-one years, as he stated to Lola Belman. In fact, he was on Hidalgo at the outbreak of hostilities between the Belt and the Inner System. When Hidalgo was destroyed by Earth forces, Sonnenberg was one of the lucky few who managed to make his way to an escape vessel. He reached the Jovian system five years ago as a refugee, much as you did. However, he did not arrive mentally and physically intact. The degree of his injuries can only be conjectured, although today he appears to be in excellent physical condition. We may therefore reasonably assume that, whether his problems were initiated during his years on Hidalgo or during his escape, upon arrival in the Jovian system his difficulties were psychological—as indeed they are today. It is not impossible, that the Busby Sanctuary deliberately sought to provide him with a whole new personality, complete with memories designed to bypass the trauma of his wartime experiences."

"I don't believe that. If Isobel Busby
created
those memories, why would she send him here for Lola to find out what's going on?"

"Agreed. I merely said that it is not impossible that the Sanctuary performed that role. Our objective at the moment is just that: to rule out the impossible. However, let us postulate that it is far more likely that Sonnenberg's problems, in whole or in part, result from experiences suffered before he arrived on Callisto. If we accept that, it brings us at once to the central mystery."

"Yeah. The
other
Bryce Sonnenberg. The one who died on Hidalgo of a burst artery in the brain."

"Precisely. Observe, in this whole affair, how frequently death enters. We have a vision of death on Mars. We have two visions of death, or probable death, on Hidalgo. We have a Bryce Sonnenberg—of whose mother, by the way, there is no sign in the Oberon data base—born on Earth in 2043, arrived on Hidalgo in '63, and dead there in '65. He has never been to Mars. Then we have
our
Bryce Sonnenberg. He also states that he has never been to Mars. His memories, if in fact they are true memories, are totally inconsistent with those of a man who, like the other Bryce Sonnenberg, reportedly left Earth for the last time when he was twenty years old. Most intriguing."

"You can call it that if you like. What next?"

"I must settle down for some serious thinking. And you?"

"I guess as soon as it's morning, I go and see Lola and she beats me up. She doesn't know I'm back yet, but as soon as she finds out, I'm dead meat."

"Ah. In dealing with the opposite sex, I believe it necessary to bear in mind the old question: Are they less logical than they seem, or do they seem less logical than they are?"

"I don't know the answer."

"The answer is, it is an ill-posed question. Both answers are impossible."

"Well, thanks for nothing. That's a real help."

"It would be unwise for you to regard me as an expert on anything involving family relationships." Bat gave a rueful sniff. "Enough of that. We must talk again later, and see where our separate cerebrations have led us."

The line went dead, leaving Jinx sitting thoughtful in the darkness. He had heard everything. Although some of it remained a mystery, he had enough. He placed his own call.

There was a three-minute delay, even though the call signal did not have to leave Ganymede. He waited patiently until at last a sleepy voice came onto the line. "Hello. Alicia Rios speaking."

"This is Jinx Barker."

"And this is the middle of the night. Damn it, Jinx, I was sound asleep."

"I'm sorry. I thought you would like to hear this at once."

"Go on, then. I'm awake now."

"I will be brief. As you know, I have established the desired relationship with Lola Belman. The subject of concern to you turns out to be one of her patients, just as we suspected. His name is Bryce Sonnenberg. I have reviewed his records. I have also had limited discussions regarding him with Lola Belman, and monitored conversations between Spook Belman and Rustum Battachariya concerning an investigation of Sonnenberg's background. I conclude that although Sonnenberg's personal history contains some oddities and inconsistencies, there is no chance whatsoever that he spent time on Mars during the period of interest to you."

"Excellent." Alicia was suddenly awake and energetic. "You've done a first-rate job, Jinx. I'll pass the word along. It may take a few days. He's not back yet."

"There is no hurry, but I do need instructions from you as to how to proceed. If my work here is finished, and I am simply to conclude my relationship with Lola Belman, I can do so on the pretext of returning to the Belt. However, we had talked of . . . the other option."

"I know. Let me get back to you on that. For the moment, just keep on as you are. Good job, Jinx."