Kane waited for orders to come through the receiver clamped to the mastoid bone behind his ear, the sunlight burning into his leg, the tension building in him, desperate with the need to turn his fear and pain and confusion into the clean lines of laser fire and the purifying glow of thermite.
The sound of helicopters came to him there, freezing his blood. He could see the sickly green of their fuselages and knew they were the same pemex machines, knew that this time there was no escape, not inside this giant, roofless pachinko machine of ancient sandstone. He set his back against the swollen base of a column and raised his gun.
What had happened to their communications? What sense was he to make of his own death when it came to him like this, anonymously out of the sky? He waited for a shot but the chance never came.
Instead the copters veered wide around the Temple and began to rake the Biotek complex with withering fire. Kane rolled onto his elbows, blinking. He hadn’t been mistaken, he could see the pemex logo as the pilots swooped low over the burning buildings.A new deal, then, another turn of the wheel.
In seconds the way was open. Kane’s last memory was of standing sentry duty inside a white tiled lab while one of Morgan’s techs dumped the Biotek computers in a continuous high-speed transmission, aimed at a relay satellite that would bounce it on to Houston, while the air around him steamed with co2 from the chunks of dry ice that littered the floor, thrown out as the fragile living circuits were looted from the cryogenic vaults and stuffed into anything that would hold the cold.
He never saw the explosion that split his skull, remembered only a flash of light and nausea that existed outside of time, a memory still in reach as he sat there in the Martian sickbay, staring at Curtis.
“I don’t understand,” Curtis said.“If nothing happened there, why was it so important?”
“It wasn’t what happened in North Africa that was important,” Takahashi said.“It was what happened afterward. In point of fact, a lot did come out of it—Pulsystems moved into a whole new field of technology, but that’s not the main thing.The main thing is that North Africa showed the world where the real power lay.”
“I didn’t get your name,” Curtis said.
“Takahashi.Vice president at Pulsystems. I’m in charge of this mission.”
“Not Reese?”
“No,” Reese said.“I’m just here for the ride. It’s Morgan’s mission, and Takahashi is Morgan’s man.”
“Then I guess I should be talking to you,” Curtis said.“You’re obviously the one to tell me what this is all about.”
Takahashi shrugged.“It’s like Lena said.Things have stabilized with about fifty percent employment and a guaranteed income.The standard of living certainly isn’t what it was fifteen or twenty years ago, but it’s on the way up again.The worst is over, and a company the size of Pulsystems has to look for new opportunities for growth.The nasa hardware was on hand and it was the decision of the Chairman that we would take the first steps toward reopening space.”
“More than that,” Lena said.“We had to see what had happened to you, to rescue any survivors—”
“You’ve come to save us,” Curtis said.
“Sure,” Reese said.“Why not? Don’t you need saving?”
“As a matter of fact, no. But I would have thought a rescue mission would have at least two or three ships to bring back the rescuees.You didn’t even bring any supplies or special medical equipment.”
“We didn’t know you were alive!” Lena said.
Kane put his spoon on the table.“You’ve already been through the ship, then.”
Curtis ignored both of them.“In fact, you didn’t even have enough propellant to slow yourselves down.We tracked you all the way through that aerobraking stunt. My guess is you didn’t have enough stages for the ship.Which tells me that your man Morgan isn’t building any new hardware, just using up the leftovers. Now tell me, does that sound like an ongoing space program to you?”
The worst part of this, Kane thought, is that he’s right. Just what the hell are we doing here?
“As far as Chairman Morgan is concerned,”Takahashi said,“he undertook the entire expense of this mission himself. If it’s successful, he should be able to get funding from some of the other majors.When that happens, there will be time for fabricating new hardware.”
“And what,” asked Curtis,“constitutes a successful mission?”
“We found a surviving colony up here,” Reese said.“I’d call that a pretty big success in itself.Wouldn’t you?”
Curtis stood up.“I’m sure you all need some rest.” He looked at Lena. “We’ll talk more later. If there’s anything you need, just let me know.” Kane wasn’t sure if the offer was for Lena alone or extended to all of them.“Molly?” Curtis said.“Are you coming?”
“I’ll be along,” she said, and Curtis left.
She stood behind Reese and put one hand on his shoulder.“I’m sorry. He’s gotten worse, hasn’t he?”
“I never knew him all that well,” Reese said,“but yeah, he seems to be losing whatever he had. Is he okay?”
“I don’t know. He’s changed. I don’t think he ever meant to put himself in a position of power. But once he got there—it’s like he can’t do without it now.”
“Of course he’s got a point,” Lena said.“This whole thing is suspicious. I mean, if Morgan somehow knew they were alive, it would explain why he was so desperate to get here.But why us?What does he expect us to do without ships to evacuate them or supplies or anything else?”
“Ask Morgan,” Reese said.“I don’t know.” He took Molly’s hand and held on to it.
Kane wondered if the warmth between Reese and Molly was the remnant of something sexual. It seemed unlikely; she would have been barely twenty the last time Reese saw her, less than half his age. Kane found himself resenting the intimacy, partially from sexual attraction to Molly, partially because of the distance he still felt between himself and Reese.And then there was the overwhelming sense of alienation that Curtis had given him. He not only didn’t belong here, but his connection with Morgan made him an object of suspicion and anger.
“You’d better get some rest,” Molly said to Reese, squeezing his hand and letting it go.Then she turned and smiled at Kane.“Take care,” she said. Kane nodded and watched her walk away.
“We have to get back to the ship,”Kane said.“We need to tell Morgan what’s happening.”
Reese shrugged.
“I’ll go,”Takahashi said.“I’m in the best shape for it, and it’s my job.” Kane didn’t argue with him, and neither did Lena or Reese.“The question is, what are we going to tell him?”
“Tell him they don’t want us,” Kane said.“Tell him we might as well pull out.”
“We don’t know that,” Reese said.“The only one we’ve really heard from is Curtis. He doesn’t speak for the whole colony, regardless of what he thinks.” He stood up, steadied himself for a moment on the edge of the table, then walked cautiously back to his cot.
“Lena?” Kane asked.
“I don’t know.All I know is I don’t want to go back on that ship again. Right now it feels like I never want to go, and I expect I’m going to feel that way for a while.”
“I’ll tell him we’re okay,”Takahashi said.“I’ll say the colony’s functional, I’ll say we’ll get back to him. If he wants any more than that, I’ll tell him he’ll have to wait.”
“Sounds good to me,” Kane said. He finished Reese’s soup and drank most of his water. Nine months of zero-G had cost him a tenth of his blood plasma, and it had left him enormously thirsty.