Charles Sheffield - The Spheres of Heaven

He had assumed a false name and identity for this journey as a matter of course, without ever expecting it to come in useful. Danny, who for the moment was Jack Eckart and had better not forget it, made a more detailed inspection of Alice Tannenbaum. She had to be close to his age, but she was far better preserved. The skin of her face and hands was smooth and unlined. And she must be rich. Those epidermal rebuilders cost real money.

“I’d say that I’m from pretty much all over.” He sat down next to her. “Born out among the Saturnian moons, spent a while on Mars, a while on Earth, a while on Ganymede. If it hadn’t been for the quarantine, I might be somewhere out among the stars by now.”

“That’s so exciting.” She turned as though to glance out of the port, but actually to display her profile, which she must know showed her to advantage. “You make me feel like I’ve been nowhere and done nothing. Never to Mars or Ceres, never to the Jovian moons. I wanted to, but my family wouldn’t allow it.”

“But you’ve been to the Vulcan Nexus before.”

“A hundred times. That’s different. Coming here is a family tradition. We were one of the Nexus first families, involved from day one.”

The Vulcan Nexus was a major supplier of power for the whole system, drinking in solar energy through the giant arrays and sending it out to destinations as far away as Persephone in tightly collimated microwave beams. Abundant energy — at a price. Anyone with a piece of the Vulcan Nexus revenue stream had money to throw away.

Danny was here to see if he could find the Bun, not to pursue personal business interests. But the urge to play the game a little was irresistible, particularly when the target was as tempting as Alice Tannenbaum. He justified his next words with the thought that he would need help if he was to explore the Nexus in a day or less. He said casually, “I suppose I’ve been a user of your service and never realized it. The past few years I’ve been on one of the Saturnian moons, and we have a big receiver for energy from the Vulcan Nexus.”

“Really.” She turned to stare at him with wide hazel eyes. “What were you doing out there, Jack?”

“My family’s business.” Danny glanced carefully around the cabin, though the nearest human other than Alice Tannenbaum was a million kilometers away. “I was on Hyperion, busy with diamond mining operations.”

He watched closely. Her reaction would decide what came next. Everyone in the system knew about Raxon Yang and his five-centuries-old discovery on Hyperion. Early explorers of the solar system had more or less ignored the lumpy, uneven hunk of rock that formed the seventh major satellite of Saturn. Old Yang, with nothing better to do, had landed on Hyperion and followed a surface fissure down and down and down. Seven kilometers below the surface he came to the upper face of the Yang diamond.

Even after the claim was filed, it took a while to learn exactly what he had. The Yang diamond had the shape of a forty-legged octopus. Its head, seven kilometers below the surface, was almost spherical and fourteen kilometers across. The legs ran out and down, each one half a kilometer wide and thirty to forty kilometers long.

Mining the Yang diamond had created the Vault of Hyperion, home to a polyglot melange of industries. Now no diamond was exported — because there was none left to export.

The first question was, did Alice Tannenbaum know that?

She did. She was frowning at Danny. “But Jack, I thought that the diamond was all—”

Danny was ahead of her. “Not the original one, of course. That’s long gone. But a few years ago we had seismic hints that there might be another one. We organized a private offering, formed a new stable of investors, and began prospecting. The exploration was very difficult. We were about ready to give up when a month ago we struck lucky. Actually, that’s why I’ve come to the Vulcan Nexus. We have been unable to reach one of our larger investors, and I’ve been sent to find him. If you are a regular visitor to the Nexus, maybe you’ve run across him. His name is Bonifant Rombelle. Some people know him as Senor Bonifant, others as Bunnyfat Ramble; but his close friends call him Bun or the Bun.”

“I never heard of him.” Alice’s face showed her utter lack of interest in hearing more about the lost investor. “You say you `struck lucky.’ Do you mean you found another Yang Diamond?”

“Oh, nothing nearly so big. The new one is smaller, and much deeper. On the other hand, this diamond seems wonderfully pure and without flaws. So yes, it’s a very significant find. It will make many people very rich.”

If Alice Tannenbaum owned part of the Vulcan Nexus power stream, she was already very rich. But one thing that Danny had learned, early in life, was this: people, no matter how much money they had, never felt that it was enough.

Sure enough, Alice was leaning toward him. “I suppose that your original private offering was fully subscribed.”

“It was indeed.”

“Oh, phooey. How long will it be before you know for sure the quality of the new stones?”

“Oh, we know that already. The new mine will be every bit as good as the original Yang diamond, possibly even better. As a matter of fact … excuse me for just a moment.”

Danny went forward, retrieved his jacket, and returned to Alice. He reached into one of the pockets and took out a black pouch. “A small sample, something I intended to leave with Bonifant Rombelle when I find him. But it will give you some idea …”

Twelve hours later, Danny was beginning to change his mind about a number of things. First, the Nexus itself was not a well-lit or a hot place. The collector array sucked in every last erg of solar power so that, nestled in behind and sheltered by it, Salamander Row was one of the coldest places of the system, as dark and chilly as interstellar space. Danny was comfortable with that. He didn’t find space at all terrifying. Second, this was, as Alice Tannenbaum had suggested, a place where with the right companion you could have a whooping good time. The residents of the Row didn’t seem to believe in moderation in anything. Finally, there were hints that Alice herself, in spite of her regal appearance, might be anything but a lady.

For one thing, she seemed to know every low-life pit stop in the five-kilometer sprawl of tunnels and chambers that made up Salamander Row, and she apparently had it in mind to dance in all of them before she considered sleeping. She had incredible energy, and when Danny pleaded fatigue and unfamiliarity with zero-gee dance technique she was quite ready to cavort alone, or with anyone else in the place. Danny was happy to go along with that. While Alice enjoyed herself he could have a quiet word with the regulars. There was no better way of making discreet enquiries about Bunnyfat Ramble.

On the other hand, with all his questions he was getting nowhere fast. No one had heard of the Bun, under that or any other of his preferred names. It wasn’t until the sixth port of call that Danny had even a sniff of something promising.

“I never heard of your friend.” The speaker was a tall black man with a face almost invisible behind a tangled beard. He was swaying on his feet and within minutes of final collapse. The cloud of secondhand intoxicants diffusing from him was enough to make Danny dizzy himself. The man stood frowning, as if making a mighty effort to think. At last he said, “D’you say he was good at making gadgets?”

“The best.”

“Then you ought to go find Fireside Elsie. I heard talk of a fancy data tap with a top gadgeteer involved. It came through Fireside Elsie, but I don’t think it was her game. If it was, you can be sure she didn’t do the work herself.”