Ben Bova - The Silent War

But that might be a good thing, he realized. The more unlikely we appear, the less seriously the guards will take us. We might still have surprise on our side.

Not for long, he saw. A pair of men were striding down the winding path toward them, both of them tall, broadshouldered, with the hard-eyed look of professional security guards. They were clad in identical slate-gray tunics and slacks: not quite uniforms, but close enough. Fuchs wondered what kinds of weapons they carried. “What are you doing here?” the one on the left called, raising a hand to stop Fuchs and his people.

“Emergency maintenance,” said Fuchs, slowing but not stopping. “Water stoppage.”

“We didn’t get any emergency call,” said the other one. He was slightly shorter, Fuchs saw, and looked somewhat younger.

“It registered on our board,” Fuchs lied. Stretching out an arm to point, he said, “You can see the problem from here, up on your roof.”

The shorter one turned almost completely around. The other glanced over his shoulder. Fuchs launched himself at the older one, ramming his head into the man’s midsection. He heard a satisfying “Oof!” and the two of them went down, Fuchs on top. Nodon kicked the man in the head and he went limp. Getting to his feet, Fuchs saw that Amarjagal and Sanja had knocked the other one unconscious as well.

Swiftly, they tied the two men with their own belts and dragged them into the bushes, but not before taking their guns and communicators.

Fuchs looked over one of the pistols as they ran toward the mansion. Laser pistols. Fuchs remembered how the rock rats had turned their handheld tools into makeshift weapons, years ago. These were specifically designed as sidearms. Nodon held the other gun.

“STOP WHERE YOU ARE!” boomed an amplified voice.

Fuchs yelled back, “This is an emergency! Quick! We haven’t a moment to lose!”

The front door of the mansion opened as they raced up to it, and another pair of guards in identical slate-gray outfits—one of them a woman—stepped out, looking puzzled.

“What’s going-”

Fuchs shot the man and before she could react Nodon shot the woman. The infrared laser beams were invisible but Fuchs saw the smoking little circular wound in his man’s forehead as he slumped to the ground.

“Come on,” Fuchs said, waving his crew forward. Amarjagal and Sanja stopped long enough to take the guns from the unconscious guards, then they stepped over their inert bodies and into the mansion’s entryway. I’m in his house! Fuchs marveled. I’m actually in Humphries’s home! He realized he hadn’t expected to get this far.

A woman in a black servant’s dress came out of a door down the hall, carrying a silver tray laden with covered dishes. Fuchs rushed toward her. When she saw the gun in his hand she gave out a frightened squeak, dropped the tray with a loud crash, and fled back into the kitchen.

“Never mind her,” Fuchs snarled. “Find Humphries.”

Finally ending her video tour of the ship, Edith returned to her cabin. She felt tired, but decided to review what she had shot and mark the scenes for future editing.

Once her face appeared on the cabin’s wallscreen, though, she studied it minutely for signs of aging. To her relief, she could find none. The rejuvenation therapies were still working.

Then she wondered if that might not be counted against her, back on Earth. They might think I’m filled with nanomachines, like Doug. That would prejudice them against me, maybe.

She shrugged to herself and shut down the display. Faced with a choice between flatlander prejudices and physical youth, she opted for youth. With a yawn she looked toward her bed. Time for some beauty sleep, Edith said to herself, wishing that Doug were here with her.

The house was huge, Fuchs realized, and divided into two sections. On one side of the hallway that extended from the entrance there seemed to be a warren of offices and laboratories. Fuchs and his crew glanced into a few of them; they were unoccupied, quiet, dark. Offices for his staff, Fuchs guessed, empty at this time of night.

Impatiently he waved his three aides back to the hallway.

“Sanja,” he directed, pointing down the hall, “you find that woman. She must know where Humphries is. “We’ll look through the other side of the house.”

Humphries was upstairs, in the master bedroom suite, sitting at his computer desk. The war is going well, he said to himself as he studied the latest figures on battle casualties. In another couple of months we’ll have booted Astro out of the Belt altogether.

Yet when he turned to his intelligence department’s latest assessment, his face contorted into a frown. Astro’s building more ships, gearing up for a counterattack. That damned greasemonkey doesn’t know when she’s beaten.

He heard a muffled clatter from downstairs. One of the servants must have dropped something. Leaning back in his yielding desk chair he realized that he had ordered a snack more than half an hour ago. Where the hell was it?

With a shake of his head he returned to his musings about the war. They claim Pancho’s disappeared. More likely she’s down at that Nairobi base trying to get their support. And I’ve got a board of directors meeting coming up. They’ll yell bloody murder about the p-and-l figures. This war’s bleeding us. But once we win it, they’ll all shut up. They’ll have to.

His thoughts returned to Pancho. The little guttersnipe. If she’s building a new fleet of warships here at Selene it makes sense to attack the factories where they’re being built. But that would bring Stavenger into the war on her side. I don’t want Selene coming in against—

“The water turned off.”

Annoyed, Humphries turned to see Victoria Ferrer standing in the doorway to his office, wrapped in a white full-length robe, its sash cinched around her waist. Her hair was glistening wet.

“What?” he snapped.

“The water turned off,” she repeated, “right in the middle of my shower.”

At that moment the report hovering above his desk abruptly disappeared, replaced by the intense face of his chief security guard.

“Sir, we have intruders on the premises.”

“Inside the house?”

“Yessir. Downstairs. I suggest you go to top security mode immediately.”

“Damned right! And you get them! Call everyone you’ve got. Get them!”

Down in his basement office, the security chief clicked off his phone, thinking furiously. Only twelve guards on night duty, he knew. Still, he glanced at the screen showing the duty roster. They’ve already knocked out four of them. He told the phone to call up every guard on the payroll —another two dozen of them—and get them to the mansion immediately.

Humphries has his suite sealed off, so they can’t get to him unless they can cut through three centimeters of reinforced cermet, he thought. Even with laser pistols that will take some time. The boss is safe enough. He called for a view of the master suite and saw that Ferrer was in there with Humphries. He grinned to himself. Hell, he might even enjoy this, as long as she’s sealed into the bedroom with him.

Then he turned his attention to the screen showing three of the four intruders making their way up the main staircase to the upper floor.

Fuchs was leading Nodon and Amarjagal cautiously up the main stairway, peering intently at the upper landing to see if any more security guards were up there. Suddenly he heard the heavy slamming of doors. A voice blared from speakers hidden in the ceiling:

“WE HAVE YOU ON CAMERA AND ARE AUTHORIZED TO USE LETHAL FORCE IF NECESSARY. THE HOUSE IS SEALED AND THERE IS NO WAY FOR YOU TO ESCAPE. DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND PUT YOUR HANDS ON TOP OF YOUR HEADS.”