The Precipice (40 page)

“I mean, you can see my problem. I know you can. How can I let you go when there's every chance that you'll tell people that
I'm responsible for Dan Randolph's death?”

“But I'm responsible, too.”

“Yes, I know. But you'd confess to it, wouldn't you?”

“I…” she hesitated, then said in a low, defeated voice, “I suppose I would, sooner or later.”

“There you are,” Humphries said softly. “The problem remains.”

“You're going to have to kill me.”

“I don't want to do that. I'm not a cold-blooded murderer. In fact, I'd like to see you reunited with your grandchildren,
if it's at all possible. There must be some way we can work together, some way we can find around this problem.”

“I don't see any,” Cardenas whispered.

“Well, think it over,” Humphries said, heading for the door. “I'm sure you can come up with a solution, if you just put your
mind to it”

He smiled as he opened the door and left. George saw the guard standing out in the hallway before Humphries closed the door
and its lock clicked shut.

As he strode down the hallway, Humphries mused to himself, It
could
work! If we could spread enough nanoma-chines I could break the greenhouse warming in a couple of years. They'd be on their
knees with gratitude.

He decided to put a small team of experts together to study the possibilities dispassionately. Cardenas isn't the only nanotechnology
guru in Selene, he assured himself.

K
ris Cardenas stared at the locked door for several silent moments after Humphries left, then she suddenly broke into racking
sobs. Face buried in her hands, body bent, she stumbled to the bed and threw herself onto it, crying inconsolably.

George stood uncertainly in the far corner of the bedroom, wondering what he should do. She's already hysterical, he said
to himself. If I go and tap her on the shoulder and say, “Hi! I'm an invisible man!” she'll probably freak out altogether.

So he waited, fidgeting unhappily, until Cardenas stopped crying. It didn't take long. She sat up on the bed, took a deep
breath, then got to her feet and went to the lavatory. When she came out again, it was obvious to George that she had washed
her face and put on some makeup. But her eyes were still red, puffy.

Well, you can't stand here like a fookin' idiot forever, George told himself. Do something!

Before he could decide what to do, Cardenas walked to the window and pressed her fingers against the glass. Then she turned
and seemed to survey the room. With a slight nod, she walked to the bare little desk and picked up its wooden, cushioned chair.
It seemed heavy for her, but she carried it, tottering slightly, to the window.

She wants to crash the window and jump out of here, George realized. She'll just end up hurting herself.

He touched her arm lightly and whispered, “Excuse me.”

Cardenas flinched and let the chair thump to the carpeting. She blinked, stared, saw nothing.

“Excuse me, Dr. Cardenas,” George whispered.

She spun around in a complete circle, eyes wide.

“Who said that?”

George cleared his throat and replied, a little louder, “It's me, George Ambrose. I'm—”

“Where the hell are you?”

George felt slightly embarrassed. “I'm invisible.”

“I'm going crazy,” Cardenas muttered. She sank down onto the chair, right there in the middle of the room.

“No you're not,” George said, still keeping his voice low. “I'm here to get you out of this place.”

“This is a trick.”

“Is this room bugged? Do they have any cameras in here?”

“I… don't think so…”

“Look,” George said, then immediately realized it was a foolish term to use. “I'm gonna take off me hood so you can see me
face. Don't get scared now.”

Cardenas looked more suspicious than frightened. George yanked the hood off his head and pulled off his face mask. It felt
good to feel cool air on his skin.

She jumped out of the chair. “Christ almighty!”

“No, it's just me,” he said, with a slight grin. “George Ambrose. I work for Dan Randolph, y'know.”

Comprehension lit her eyes. “Walton's stealth suit! He didn't destroy it, after all.”

“You know about it.”

“Me, and four other people.”

“There's a few more now,” George said.

“How in the world did you ever—”

“No time for that now. We've got to get you out of here.”

“How?”

George scratched at his beard. “Good question.”

“You didn't bring along a suit for me, did you?” Cardenas said.

“Should have, shouldn't I? We just didn't think of it. We weren't certain where you were.”

“So what do we do?”

George thought it over for a few moments. “They keep you in this room all the time?”

Cardenas nodded.

“Door's locked, isn't it?”

“Yes. And there's a guard outside… at least, every time they've brought a meal in to me there's been a guard out in the hall.
I imagine he's armed.”

George's face lit up. “When do they bring you meals? When's the next one coming?”

Several hours later there was a single rap on the door, and then Cardenas heard the lock click. She glanced swiftly about
the room but could no longer see George.

The door opened and the same silent, sour-faced woman in dark uniform came in, carrying a dinner tray. Cardenas could see
a wiry young man standing on the other side of the doorway. The woman deposited the tray wordlessly on the coffee table in
front of the sofa and then departed, still silent and dour. The guard closed the door and locked it again.

Cardenas sat on the sofa. For the first time in days she had an appetite. She felt George's bulk settling on the cushions
beside her.

“Smells good,” George said.

She took the lid off a platter of fish fillets and vegetables.

“Looks good, too,” George added.

“You're hungry,” she said.

“Haven't eaten since breakfast.”

“Help yourself.”

George didn't wait to be coaxed. He lifted off his face mask again and dug in. Cardenas watched as fork and knife moved seemingly
by themselves and chunks of dinner rose to his face, which seemed to be floating in midair. She found that if she looked hard
enough, directly at him, she could see a faint flickering glitter, almost subliminal. Reflection of the ceiling lights scattered
by the chips, she thought. But you have to know he's there to see it, and even then it's almost below the perception level.

“Don't you want any?” George asked.

“No, you go ahead.”

“Eat the veggies, at least”

“I'll take the salad.”

The meal was finished in a few minutes. George put his mask on again and completely disappeared.

“D'you tell ‘em you're finished or do they send the maid back for the tray automatically?”

“I tell the guard. He sends for the maid.”

“Okay. Tell the guard you're finished and ask him to take the tray.”

“He'll send for the maid.”

“Tell ‘im you don't want to wait for her. Make some excuse.”

Cardenas nodded, got up from the sofa, and went to the door. She could sense George's body warmth as he padded along beside
her.

She banged on the door with the flat of her hand. “I'm finished. Could you please take the tray?”

“I'll call the kitchen,” came the guard's muffled voice.

“I can't wait! I've got to get to the toilet right away! I'm sick to my stomach. Please take the tray.”

A moment's hesitation, then they heard the lock click. The door swung open and the guard stepped in, looking concerned.

“What's the matter? Something in the—”

The punch sounded like a melon hitting the pavement from a considerable height. The guard's head snapped back and his eyes
rolled up. He crumpled to the floor. Cardenas saw his arms yanked up into the air and his body dragged into the room.

“Come on, now,” George whispered to her.

They stepped out into the hallway. The door shut, seemingly by itself, and locked. She felt his hand engulf half her upper
arm as George let her down the hallway to the stairs. The house seemed quiet at this hour, although a glance out the windows
showed that the cavern outside was still lit in daytime mode.

The downstairs hall was empty, but Cardenas could hear the sounds of conversation floating through from somewhere. Neither
of the voices sounded like Humphries's to her. They got to the foyer just inside the front door. Two young men in gray suits
looked surprised to see her approaching them.

Frowning, the taller of the two said, “Dr. Cardenas, what are—”

George's punch spun him completely around. The other guard stared, frozen with surprise, until he was lifted off his feet
by a blow to the midsection. Cardenas heard a bone-snapping
crunch!
and the guard fell limply to the tiled floor.

The front door jerked open and George hissed, “Come on, then!”

Cardenas ran out of the house, up the path that wound through the garden, and through the hatch that opened into Selene's
bottommost corridor. She could hear George panting
and puffing alongside her. Once they were through the hatch, George's hand on her arm brought her to a stop.

“I don't think anybody's followin' us,” he said.

“How long do you think it will take for them to realize I'm gone?” she asked.

She sensed him shrugging. “Not fookin' long.”

“What now, then?”

“Lemme get outta this suit,” George muttered. “Hot enough inside here to cook a fella.”

His face appeared, then his entire shaggy head. Within a minute he stood before her, sweating and grinning, a big red-haired
mountain of a man in rumpled, stained olive-green coveralls.

“That's better,” George said, taking a deep breath. “Could hardly breathe inside that suit.”

As they started walking swiftly along the corridor toward the escalator, Cardenas asked, “Where can I go? Where will I be
safe? Humphries will turn Selene upside-down looking for me.”

“We could go to Stavenger and ask him to take care of you.”

She shook her head. “Don't put Doug in the middle of this. Besides, Humphries probably has his own people planted in Selene's
staff.”

“H'mm, yeah, maybe,” George said as they reached the escalator. “Inside Astro, too, for that matter.”

Suddenly frightened at the possibilities, Cardenas blurted, “Where can I go?”

George smiled. “I got the perfect hideout for ya. Long as you don't mind sharin' it with a corpsicle, that is.”

“
I
t's a beauty,” Dan breathed, staring at the image on the control panel's radar screen.

“Purty ugly-lookin' beauty,” Pancho countered.

The radar image showed an elongated irregular lump of an asteroid, one end rounded and pitted, the other dented by what looked
like the imprint of a giant mailed fist.

“It looks rather like a potato,” said Amanda, “don't you think?”

“An iron potato,” Dan said.

Fuchs came through the hatch, and suddenly the bridge felt crowded to Dan. Lars isn't tall, he said to himself, but he fills
up a room.

“That is it?” Fuchs asked, his eyes riveted to the screen.

“That's it,” Pancho said, over her shoulder. She tapped at the keyboard on her left and a set of alphanumerics sprang up on
the small screen above it. “Fourteenth asteroid discovered this year.”

Amanda said, “Then its official name will be 41-014 Fuchs.”

“How's it feel to have your name on an asteroid, Lars?” Pancho asked.

“Very fine,” Fuchs said.

“You're the first person to have his name attached to a newly-discovered asteroid in
years''
Amanda said. She seemed almost aglow, to Dan.

“Most of the new rocks have been found by the impact searchers,” Pancho said. “Those li'l bitty probes don't get their names
into the record.”

“Asteroid 41-014 Fuchs,” Amanda breathed.

He smiled and shrugged—squirmed, almost, as if embarrassed by her enthusiasm.

“The official name's one thing,” Dan said. “I'm calling her Bonanza.”

“Her?” Fuchs asked.

“Asteroids are feminine?” Pancho challenged.

Dan held his ground. “Hey, we speak of Mother Earth, don't we? And they call Venus our sister planet, don't they?”

“What about Mars?” Pancho retorted.

“Or Jupiter,” said Amanda.

Pointing to the lump imaged on the radar screen, Dan insisted, “Bonanza's going to make us all rich. And very happy. She and
her sisters are going to save the world. She's a female.”

“Sure she's female,” Pancho said laconically. “You want to dig into her, don't you?”

Fuchs sputtered and Amanda said, “Pancho, really!”

Dan put on an innocent air. “What a dirty mind you have, Pancho. I admire that in a woman.”

Within three hours they were close enough to Bonanza to see it for themselves: a dark, deformed shape glinting sullenly in
the wan light of the distant Sun. The asteroid blotted
out the stars as it tumbled slowly end over end in the cold empty silence of space.

“… eighteen hundred and forty-four meters along its long axis,” Amanda was reading out the radar measurements. “Seven hundred
and sixty-two meters at its maximum width.”

“Nearly two kilometers long,” Dan mused. He hadn't left the bridge all during their approach to the metallic asteroid.

“Killing residual thrust,” Pancho said, her attention focused on the control displays.