Ben Bova - The Silent War

We’ve already done a genetic screen on me, of course. I passed that test. It’s just the baby, my poor helpless little baby, that has a problem.

I’ve got to make certain that Martin doesn’t know. He mustn’t find out.

Amanda lay in her bed for hours while Humphries thrashed and moaned in his sleep next to her. She stared at the darkened ceiling, watched the digital clock count the minutes and hours. At last, well after four a.m., still wide awake, she sat up and softly slipped out of bed. On bare feet she tiptoed across the thick carpeting past the lavatory, into the walk-in closet that was lined with the finest clothes money could buy. Only after she had gently closed the closet door did she grope for the light switch on the wall. Months earlier she had disconnected the sensor that automatically turned on the overhead lights. Squinting in the sudden brightness, she stepped deeper into the closet, ignoring the gowns and frocks and slacks and precious blouses. She went to one of the leather handbags hanging in the rear of the closet and, after rummaging in it for a few moments, came out with a handful of soft blue gelatin capsules.

Tranquilizers, Amanda told herself. They’re nothing more than good, strong tranquilizers. I need them, if I want to get any sleep at all. She stared at the capsules in her palm; her hand was shaking so hard she feared she would drop them. She closed her fingers around them. They won’t hurt the baby. They can’t, that’s what the chemist told me. And I need them. I need them badly.

Dorik Harbin hid the discomfort he felt from all the others, but he could not hide it from himself. A man who preferred solitude, a lone wolf who tracked his prey silently, without help, he now was in command of nearly five hundred men and women, mercenaries hired by Humphries for the coming assault against Astro Corporation.

Most of them were engineers and technicians, not warriors. They were building a base on Vesta, burrowing deep into the asteroid’s rocky body, tunneling out hardened silos to hold missiles that could blast approaching ships out of the sky. Harbin remembered HSS’s first attempt to build a base on Vesta’s surface. Fuchs had wiped it out with a single blow, dropping a freighter’s load of asteroidal ores that smashed buildings and people in a deadly avalanche of falling rocks.

So now we dig, Harbin said to himself as he glided down one of the dusty tunnels toward the smoothed-out cave that would be his headquarters. He wore a real uniform now, complete with epaulets on his shoulders and an uncomfortable high choke of a collar. And insignias of rank. Harbin was a colonel now, with four-pointed stars at his throat and cuffs to show it. The emblems disturbed Harbin. They reminded him of crosses. He’d seen too many crosses over the years, in churches and more often in cemeteries.

Humphries paid someone to design these stupid uniforms, he knew. He also knew that a man’s ability to command comes from what is in his head and in his guts, not from fancy uniforms and polished boots.

But Humphries pays the bills, Grigor constantly reminded him. And Humphries is in a sweat to complete this base and begin the assault that will wipe Astro out of the Belt.

But Fuchs is still out there, somewhere, hiding himself deep in the dark emptiness of the Belt. It’s a mistake to stop hunting him, Harbin thought. Humphries thinks that once he’s eliminated Astro, Fuchs will fall into his lap easily enough. But I wonder. The man is wily, tough, a survivor. He’s dangerous, too dangerous to be permitted to live.

Despite its being the third-largest of all the asteroids, Vesta is still only slightly more than five hundred kilometers across. Its gravity is minuscule. Harbin and all the others working inside the tunnels and caves had to wear uncomfortable breathing masks and goggles clamped to their faces constantly because every step they took stirred up fine powdery dust that hung in the air endlessly, floating in the infinitesimal gravity like an eternal, everlasting mist. Still, the people he passed as he glided along the tunnel all snapped salutes at the stars on his uniform. Harbin dutifully returned each salute even though he loathed the necessity.

At least his office was clean. It was a small chamber carved by plasma torches out of the metallic rock and then sprayed with thick layers of plastic to hold down the dust. With the air blowers working, Harbin could take off his goggled mask and breathe normally once the door to the tunnel outside was shut.

The office was little more than a bare cubicle containing a desk and a few chairs. No decorations on the walls. Nothing to remind Harbin of his past. Even the desk drawers were mostly empty, except for the locked one that contained his medications. He slumped tiredly onto his desk chair and commanded his computer to display the day’s incoming messages. I shouldn’t be sitting behind a desk, he told himself. I should be in a ship, tracking down Fuchs. It’s a mistake to let him live.

Then he smiled bitterly at himself. Not that I’ve been so successful at getting him. Fuchs is a wily old badger, Harbin admitted to himself. Almost, he admired the man.

The list of incoming messages took form in the air above Harbin’s desk. Most of them were routine, but there was one from Grigor, Harbin’s direct superior in the HSS chain of command, the only man between him and Martin Humphries himself.

Harbin told the computer to display Grigor’s message.

Grigor’s gloomy image appeared immediately. He was seated at his own desk. It was as if Harbin were looking into the man’s office. To his surprise, the dour, cold-eyed chief of HSS security was actually smiling; it looked as if it pained him to stretch his thin lips that way.

“I have good news for you, Dorik,” said Grigor, almost jovially. “A dozen attack ships are on their way to you, plus supply and logistics vessels. They are not sailing together, of course. That would attract unwelcome attention from Astro and even from the International Astronautical Authority. But they will start arriving at your base within the week. A detailed schedule of their courses, cargoes and arrival times are attached to this message.”

Harbin stopped Grigor’s message and checked the attachment. Impressive. Within two weeks he would have a small armada of warships, ready to ravage the Belt.

He turned Grigor back on. “From the reports you’ve been sending, I can see that the base will be fully operational within three weeks or less. Mr. Humphries wants to make absolutely certain that the base is protected properly. He wants to take no chances that Fuchs or anyone else will attack it before it is completed. Therefore, you are to use the attack vessels as a defensive screen around Vesta. Keep them in orbit around the asteroid and keep them on high alert, prepared to intercept any unauthorized vessel. Is that clear?”

The question was rhetorical, of course. Harbin wouldn’t be able to get a reply to Grigor at Selene for a half-hour or more.

“One final order,” Grigor went on, without waiting for a reply. “Once the entire battle fleet has been assembled, you will hold it in readiness until an attack plan is sent to you through me. Mr. Humphries wants no moves made until he has approved a complete campaign plan.”

Then Grigor smiled again, obviously forced. “Of course, we will expect your inputs for the plan. We won’t finalize it until you have made your contribution.”

The image winked off and Harbin was staring at the empty chairs in front of his desk once again.

“A plan of campaign,” he muttered to himself. Humphries thinks he’s a field marshal now, planning battle strategy. Harbin groaned inwardly. He’s amassing all these weapons, all these people, and he’s sitting back in the safety of that underground mansion of his, playing armchair general. I’ll have to follow his orders, no matter how stupid they might be.