The Ganymede Club (31 page)

"For God's sake, Spook, how much farther?"

"Hey, it was your idea to come, not mine. But we're nearly there—see the door, right at the end of this corridor?"

Bat's idea of reasonable illumination did not match Lola's. As they left the bright lights of the corridor, she stumbled along behind Spook into a long and dim-lit room littered with what seemed to be random pieces of old junk. Apparently this was the fabulous Bat Cave that had so impressed Spook. She might have known. She saw no sign of Bat, and it would have been easy to believe that the whole place was empty, had it not been for the tantalizing smell of cooking that came wafting down the room to greet them. At the far end she saw a tall, black partition that ran across almost the whole width of the room. Spook made his way toward it, with Lola close behind. He peeked uneasily around the edge.

"Bat? It's me, Spook. My sister is with me."

Lola heard a grampus snort of outrage or disbelief, and then an irate voice: "This is quite inexcusable. You have violated my trust and my private sanctum. Do you wonder why I am so reluctant to divulge its location to others?"

Bat was not amused. But apparently he was at least wearing clothes, because Spook with the hand on Lola's side of the partition was beckoning her forward.

"Don't blame him," she said. "Blame me. I made him bring me." Lola, rounding the partition, saw a black apparition rising from a great padded seat. It was Bat, swathed in black robes and swollen with indignation to what seemed like twice his usual size. Or had he always been that big? Behind him a complete kitchen covered the whole of the end wall, its orderly layout in contrast to the chaos that filled the rest of the Bat Cave. Beside Bat's chair stood the most complicated communications center that Lola had ever seen, with whole panels labeled "Outer System Transport," "Local Travel," "Belt Travel," and "Inner System Connections."

"What I am going to ask you now is very important." She rattled out the words, before Bat could reach explosion point. "You met Jinx Barker. Did you ever reveal to him the location of this place?"

The question was curious enough to distract Bat's anger temporarily from their uninvited arrival. He peered at Lola from within the cowl of his robe and stood thinking hard for several seconds. At last he shook his great round head. "I met Jinx Barker three times, each of them a brief encounter. I am sure that I did not hint in any way at the location of the Bat Cave."

"Good." Lola sat down uninvited on another chair that swallowed her up in its depths. "That means we don't have to run for it right this minute."

Bat glared at her, but he gradually sank back into his own padded seat. "Since you are not a Puzzle Network member," he said, "and you do not therefore prize paradox for its own sake, I accept your statement at face value. However, I suggest that an explanation is in order."

"That's why I'm here." Lola sighed, and suddenly felt faint from hunger. She glanced across to the long stove, where three black pots simmered over a low heat. She had eaten nothing since her dinner with Jinx Barker—how long ago was that? A lifetime and a half, from the feel of it. "Do you suppose . . ."

Bat had seen her starved and longing look. It aroused his deepest sympathies. He rose and went across to the kitchen counter. "If you can eat and talk simultaneously, I can certainly eat and listen. You are most fortunate. This is my special five-cheese fondue."

"Do you have enough?" Lola saw Bat's reproving expression. "I guess you do. Yes, I can eat and talk at the same time. It will take a while to tell you everything."

"Leave out nothing." Bat brought over a low table, placed a bubbling black pot where all three of them could reach it, and gestured to Lola to help herself. "Nothing," he repeated. "Remember, the details matter."

Lola nodded. She took a first mouthful, burned her tongue, and began to talk. It was the third time she was telling it, and she could finally distance herself a little from what she was saying. The shock of seeing a tender lover turn murderer had not faded, but now she could see how easy she had made things for Jinx Barker. With anyone else she would have asked questions. At the very least she would have made sure that she could be reached in case of emergency, before diving two thousand kilometers—for
dinner
, no less—into Ganymede's unknown interior. She had been lucky. Like Jonah, she had been into The Belly of the Whale and returned to talk about it.

Bat asked only two questions and made one comment. "You are sure of the name, Jeffrey Cayuga, for the man who supposedly gave instructions to Alicia Rios?"

"Yes. Do you know him?"

Bat shook his head. "Who was the other man, the one who talked to Alicia Rios at the First Family party?"

She ought to know that. But after a day and a half without sleep her brain could not produce a name. "He was descended from someone on the first Saturn expedition," she said. "I'm sure of that. I'll try to remember his name later."

"Do so." Bat spoke as though he were her senior and she was the teenager. Lola swallowed her exasperation. She had not yet told him that she wanted Spook to stay in the Bat Cave until she was sure of their safety.

"It seems clear that Bryce Sonnenberg is somehow at the heart of this," Bat went on, "since there is otherwise no logical reason for killing both of you. And, as Spook and I have discovered, Sonnenberg is himself an abundant source of mystery. He is not what he seems. His stated background and his recorded background do not match. Although I am beginning to have suspicions, they still lack coherence."

He subsided thoughtfully into his chair, a great mass of flesh and swaddling clothing. One of the pots had been emptied, and a second was down to the sticky residue at the bottom. Lola had eaten too much, and now she was feeling an overwhelming weariness. She told herself that she had to leave the Bat Cave in the next ten minutes, or fall asleep on the spot.

She stood up. "I have to get back home." She realized that it wasn't just weariness. She was afraid to return to her office, afraid of Jinx Barker, even when he was tightly bound.
If
he was tightly bound. "He ought to stay unconscious for another three or four hours, but I dare not risk that. If once he wakes up, I know he'll find a way to free himself."

"I am forced to agree with you." Bat was nodding. His face behind the hood of his robe seemed almost pleased. Lola had presented him with a new puzzle. "Barker awake presents a threat," he continued. "You must return to him before that threat can materialize. Meanwhile, there is work to be done here. The central banks should certainly contain information concerning Jeffrey Cayuga. Also, we must trace the name of every descendant of every member of the original Saturn expedition."

We
must trace the name. He must be including Spook, rather than insisting that her brother leave with her. Lola was around the black partition before he could change his mind. She poked her head back just long enough to croak, "Thanks for the food, you're a great cook," and hurried toward the front of the Bat Cave. With her eyes adjusted to the low lighting level, she could pick her way more easily across the crowded floor, but the battered equipment and cabinets seemed no less like old junk.

War relics, said her exhausted brain. Like Spook, Bat was obsessed with the awful war. Maybe that was a good thing. Who was it—Santayana?—who said that if you didn't remember the past, you would have to repeat it. Unfortunately, that told only half the story. When you dealt with humans, it seemed that even if you
did
remember the past, you still had to repeat it. How many "Great Wars" had there been, wars that for a few years were supposed to end all wars? And even if all-out war one day became a matter of history, there would still be the Jinx Barkers, the professional assassins. Death was no less final whether you died alone or at the same time as nine billion others.

Lola's return was a dream journey—hurrying along dimly remembered corridors, ascending hundreds of meters in high-speed lift chutes, hesitating before making a choice of a transit slideway. She needed to get there as fast as she could, but at the same time she was dreading the thought of her arrival. She had to turn Jinx Barker over to Ganymede Security, but what if they did not believe her? What had he
done
, that she could actually prove? Nothing criminal. Shown personal interest. Made love to her. Taken her out to dinner. He could claim to be the one with the right to complain. She had bound him mentally and physically, drugged him and questioned him, and then left him tied up for hours.

They would let him go. What they might do to her was another matter.

By the time that she arrived at the final corridor her stomach was tight with tension. Rather than going directly into her office she went along to the next entrance and into her apartment. The interconnecting office door was closed, and she tiptoed along to it and stood listening. She heard not a sound. Jinx Barker must still be unconscious.

The door opened away from her. She eased it open, inch by inch, and stepped inside. Barker ought to be exactly where she had left him, on the reclining chair at the other side of her desk.

She took one pace into the room, craning her neck to look for him. As she cleared the doorway, she was grabbed from behind. Before she could cry out, a hand came up to cover her mouth. She was pulled back hard into the space behind the open door.

20

Lola felt again the terror of a strong hand gripping her by the neck. She kicked backward and heard a grunt of pain.

"Ooh!" said a pained voice in her ear. She was turned—hard—and found herself staring into Bryce Sonnenberg's startled face. He took his hand away from her mouth. "Keep quiet. I didn't know who you were when I grabbed you, or I wouldn't have been so rough. Look at that."

He turned her again, this time toward her desk. Beyond it she saw Jinx Barker, exactly as he had been when she left him. She breathed a huge sigh of relief.

"Good, he's still there. My God, but you frightened me."

"You should be frightened." He took her by the arm and walked her forward to stand by the reclining chair. "Did you do this to him?"

"Do what?" And then she saw it. Barker looked different. His eyes bulged beneath half-open lids, and his face was livid. He did not seem to be breathing. "I didn't mean to—the drugs I gave him, the doses were the same—"

"Not drugs." Bryce Sonnenberg looked different, too. The puzzled young man who had walked into her office a few weeks ago had gone. The replacement was older, tougher, and far more knowing.

"He's dead but he didn't die of drugs," he went on. "He died of asphyxiation. Somebody suffocated him while he lay there."

"Were you here when it happened?"

"No. I arrived ten minutes ago. He was like this when I walked in."

"Then how do you know?"

"Trust me. I've seen this sort of thing before." Bryce did not explain, but walked them steadily toward the door. It was just as well that he kept his grip on her, because Lola's legs wanted to buckle.

"Somebody came and killed him." She felt dazed. "I didn't kill him. Yesterday he tried to kill me. It makes no sense."

"It makes excellent sense." They were at the door of the outer office and Bryce pointed to the lock, where a thin line had been burned through the metal. "That's how they got in. You are seeing somebody covering their tracks. Jinx Barker was hired to kill you by Alicia Rios, but he failed to do it. So he was killed himself. And she has been killed, too, and all her records destroyed. You and I are still in danger. The difference is that now we have no idea where the attack might come from. Until we know that, we can't possibly stay here. They could return any minute." He glanced along the corridor in both directions. "We seem to be all right for the moment. Where's Spook?"

"He's safe."

"Then let's go."

"I can'tjust leave here. Jinx Barker—and my patients—"

"You know how to reach them. Tell them you won't be able to treat them for a while. Give them the name of another haldane if you have to. But don't do any of that here and now—do it when we reach a safe place. Same with Jinx Barker. We don't call Security until we have a place to hide."

"Your apartment?"

"Definitely not. Remember, I was on Jinx Barker's list as well as you."

"Where, then?"

"I don't know." They had reached the end of the hallway and he turned for a last look back along the corridor. "Still seems quiet. We'll have to do a few double loops in case they use some fancy tracking gear, but we'll start that when we're a bit farther away. The big question is, Where do we go?"

Lola sighed. As the new adrenaline drained out of her she was ready to fall apart. The idea of combing Ganymede for another safe haven was quite beyond her.

"I know a place," she said. "Just don't expect the welcome mat to spread out for you when we get there."

* * *

Bat did not kick and scream and throw a fit. It was not his way. He simply looked at Bryce, then glared at Lola in stony accusation.

"As before," he said, "I suggest that an explanation is in order."

It was, but Lola didn't have the strength to provide it. She was at the absolute end of her tether. She had lost track of how long it had been since she had slept. She waved toward Bryce, slumped down into one of the Bat Cave's enormous easy chairs, and closed her eyes. Whatever had to be done would be done without her.

She was vaguely aware of Bryce Sonnenberg talking, with Bat and Spook listening and asking occasional questions. Something that Bryce had said to her earlier registered for the first time. He was convinced that Alicia Rios was dead, and that she had been murdered.

"Which brings us to Jeffrey Cayuga," said Bat. That name brought Lola to partial awareness. "After Spook arrived here, the two of us searched the data banks. Jeffrey Cayuga is in there as an entry. He is also dead."

"Cayuga, too?" Bryce Sonnenberg perched himself on the edge of Lola's chair. "That's it, then. Every single lead we had is gone."

"But Cayuga didn't die in the last few hours," Spook added. Lola recognized that tone of voice. It was wobbly and in danger of cracking—not with fear, but with excitement.