Donald Moffitt - The Jupiter Theft

“My Reliability Index hasn’t been lowered, as far as I know,” Ruiz said. “And Maybury has never received official notification that I’ve been barred from the receipt of observatory data.” He leaned back and waited.

“In security matters, a post facto determination can be made,” the general said. “As a matter of public policy—”

“As a matter of public policy, you’ve decided to use me, haven’t you,” Ruiz said. “Otherwise I’d be in a cell right now. Let’s stop the nonsense, General. What do you want?”

The general hemmed. Then he hawed. Then he looked at Maybury. He reached for a button.

“Maybury stays,” Ruiz growled. “She’s been bullied and harassed and braindipped. And now she’s going to hear what you have to say.”

“You’re a stubborn and cantankerous old man, Dr. Ruiz.”

“Never mind the flattery.”

“We want you to go along on the Jupiter expedition.”

Ruiz caught his breath. Then he said carefully, “Want to get me out of the way, do you? So that I can’t stir up any embarrassment for you while we’re discovering what that thing orbiting Jupiter is?”

The general’s lips tightened. “You’re determined to make things as difficult as possible, aren’t you.”

“Yes.”

They locked eyes for a moment.

“We want an observer on the spot,” Harris said finally. “Somebody with an independent turn of mind. We’ll be drowning in observational data. We’ll need value judgments.”

Ruiz smiled sourly. “And I’ll be conveniently away from Earth while things are turning up.”

“We don’t want to lock you up, Dr. Ruiz. You’re a very important man.”

“Thanks for being blunt, General,” Ruiz said dryly. “I thought you’d never get around to that.”

“We can’t risk any public unrest,” the general said blandly. “You of all people ought to have learned that by now. If that thing out there turns out to be any danger to Earth—as you suggested when you first discovered it—there are all sorts of Rad elements ready to exploit the situation. The Chinese Coalition is just as worried about it as we are, I can assure you.”

“Why don’t you just arrest it?” Ruiz asked. “If it starts giving off X-rays again, that is.”

“I’m beginning to lose my patience, Dr. Ruiz.”

Ruiz scratched his ear. He stared at the ceiling. After a while he said, “That’s quite a choice. Get locked up or go back to work.”

“You’ll have full access to data,” Harris said eagerly. “And when you get back, and policy is firmed up on this thing, you’ll have your pick of options. Maybe a special project—”

“What happens to Maybury?”

The general pursed his lips. “We won’t prefer charges. Naturally, we’ll have to take steps to insure reasonable security. But when this is over…”

“Lock her up and throw away the key, is that it?” Ruiz said.

“I can assure you that the young lady will be given every consideration.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Ruiz said. “I’ll need an assistant. Somebody bright. Not one of your trained-seal brains. Send her along too. Maybury, how does that appeal to you?”

She leaned forward in her chair, eyes shining. “Dr. Ruiz, I’d do anything to go along with you! Anything but go back to Farside. Or the kind of place they were keeping you!”

“It’s all settled, then,” Ruiz declared. “No charges, and a nice title for her on the expedition. Something that will look good on her career record.”

“Dr. Ruiz!” the general sputtered. “I’m trying to be reasonable, but there are limits!”

“I’m sure there are,” Ruiz said. “But we haven’t reached them yet, have we.”

“Did you like it?” Maggie asked.

“It was … interesting,” Jameson replied delicately. He settled back in the narrow seat behind her and latched the bubble. The tricab pulled out of the lobby and into the street, the driver skillfully avoiding the beggars and Privie hawkers who clustered around each emerging vehicle before it picked up speed, pawing at the fastenings of the pods. Jameson twisted around for a last look at the Houston-Dallasworth Arts Center. The opera house, an immense iridescent egg balanced on end, had been built at the turn of the century, when architectural styles were beginning to take advantage of the new structural plastics.

“I thought you would,” Maggie said complacently. “You don’t know what I had to go through to get tickets.”

“I’m impressed,” Jameson said. “I thought it was sold out.”

It was the cultural event of the season—a sensational revival of Porgy and Bess with an all-white cast and a live symphony orchestra. The critics had acclaimed the brilliance of the conception: Catfish Row could have been Privietown, and Porgy and Jasbo and Sportin’ Life might have been some of the colorful characters you could find there.

“Isn’t it terrible the way Privies—I mean Private Sector persons—have to live,” Maggie said earnestly.

Jameson, his pre-theater supper still sitting comfortably in his stomach, said, “Maggie, any PriSec citizen is free to apply for Federal employment, get the housing that goes with it, make something of himself if he wants to. Most of them just don’t have the ambition.”

“You sound just like everybody else,” she flared. “Sure, Privies are lazy and dirty and ignorant! Give them enough subsidy tickets to keep their bellies full of rice and soycorn, give them a free high on Saturday night, give them a cheap holovid to keep them quiet, bottle them up and forget them! Well, I can’t be as smug about it as you! There are two hundred million Privies today—twenty percent of the population. You can’t just write them off!”

“Nobody’s writing them off. The Private Sector’ll be brought into the system gradually. These things can’t be done overnight.”

“You sound just like a Washington stonewallah!”

“Maggie, let’s not quarrel. We’re supposed to be out for a good time. You’re beginning to sound like a Rad.”

That stopped her. She reached back and squeezed his hand. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She laughed uneasily. “Just don’t tell Caffrey.”

The cabbie’s voice made an insect buzz in the battered speaker. “Here we are, mizz.”

The trike pulled into a huge Lexiglass-enclosed courtyard with manicured lawns and dwarf trees. Jameson paid off the driver and held the lid of the passenger pod open for Maggie while she climbed out. She was wearing a layered pettiskirt with leg tubes, but she managed it with a supple grace that surprised him. She turned to him with a big smile.

“Home sweet home,” she said.

Jameson looked around. Marine guards patrolled the walks, and transparent escalators rose to an elevated loggia lined with convenience shops. At either end of the court, visible through the arched roof, were twin residential towers, graceful trapezoids soaring a thousand feet into the night sky, ablaze with squandered energy. Jameson looked sharply at Maggie. It seemed rather expensive for someone with a computer tech rating. Maggie read his expression and said disarmingly, “I splurge on my rent. The view’s worth it. Otherwise, I’m disgustingly frugal.”

They passed a lobby security check, with a hard-eyed Marine sergeant studying their silhouettes on the screen of an ultrasonic mass detector, and rode a tinted transparent box up a central shaft to a floor that was very near the top. Maggie showed the holo pattern on her passbook cover to the door, and it let her in.

Jameson forgot to breathe when he saw the view. The city was a jeweled carpet spread out below. A pattern of streets stretched on forever like a spider web of glowing wires. The tall shapes of other residential towers rose out of the electric glitter like pillars of glowing coals. And there, across the silvered ribbon of a river, he could see the mile-high mirror of the Federal Tower dancing with reflected points of light.