Дэймон Найт: Orbit 4

They crawled to the office window and peeked over the sill. Svir was unprepared for the luxury of that room. It was almost as large as the library. The floor was carpeted with Lockspur jaguar pelts and the furniture inlaid with designs of worked silver—or that rarest of metals, aluminum.

Tatja sat at her desk, her face in profile. She was slumped over, studying a large sheet of paper on her desk. Svir had never seen her look quite so unhappy. Her eyes were wide and staring, and a tear glistened on her cheek. Hedrigs leaned closer against the window. What was she reading that could be so depressing? The paper on her desk was a detailed engineering diagram of— what? Then he recognized it as one of the Ostcrlei plans for a steam-driven turbine. The engine was ingenious and quite workable—but several thousand ounces of iron were necessary for its construction. Attempts to make boilers of nonmetallic materials had been comical, and occasionally disastrous, failures. How could an engineering diagram cause someone to cry?

Grimm looked up suddenly, not at the window, but at the door to her office. Apparently someone was asking admittance, though it was virtually impossible to hear anything through the thick glass. Tatja moved with amazing speed to cover tire diagram and compose her features. In a matter of seconds, she appeared completely self-possessed.

The visitor was Brailly Tounse. Hedrigs pressed his ear against the glass, forgetting any scruples he had had about eavesdropping. What was said within was barely audible.

Tounse was saying, “Your people took fifteen ounces . . . steel. My steel! Why?”

“I needed it.” Her expression was almost haughty.

But Tounse was not put off. “So? I . . . too. We can’t run the presses without some metals, you . .

“Tough. We’re ... lee of the Somnai now, so it doesn’t matter . . . return it after we leave Bayfast . . . need it to rescue . . . Fantasie collection.”

This last promise seemed to mollify Topnse somewhat, but he still asked, . really think . . . will go through with it?”

Tatja laughed. “I can persuade that fatuous idiot to . . . anything—you should know that.” Tounse’s face went red.

Hedrigs drew back from the window, shocked. Were they talking about him? He looked at Cor and she returned his gaze levelly.

“Let’s go,” Svir muttered. He moved to the edge of the balcony and jumped to the deck below—almost on top of a crewman wearing editorial insignia. The fellow stared at him for a long moment and then continued his walk—apparently Ancho had stopped broadcasting. What if Tatja heard about this? The idea was chilling.

This line of thought was cut short as Cor came over the railing. They walked back toward the crew quarters. He stopped a few feet from the entrance to his own cabin.

Cor looked at him. “Well?”

“I don’t know, Cor. Perhaps if I knew more, what we saw wouldn’t be incriminating. I’m all confused.”

“When do you have to make up your mind?”

“Sometime this evening. I’m going to have a final briefing before lunch in the night wake period. I don’t know how long after that I’d be leaving.”

“Don’t go—at least think about what I said and what we saw.” She looked at him. “Please.”

Svir laughed harshly, “Girl, that’s one thing you can be absolutely sure of!”

Ascuasenya touched his hand briefly, then turned and walked away.

Svir didn’t get much sleep that afternoon. He lay on his bunk in the shuttered cabin, and stared into the darkness. What was Tatja Grimm? To him she had been a miraculous discovery, an escape from loneliness. And until now he had never doubted her sincerity. To the crew she was an immensely popular leader, one who could solve any problem. To the top officers on the Barge she was a harsh and arbitrary tyrant, a seductive genius, a bitch-goddess. Where did that leave the Tatja Grimm who sat silently, crying over an engineer’s diagram?

In any case, Tatja was not what he had imagined. And that revelation put the present situation in a new light.

Though it was past sunset, he didn’t go down for breakfast, but paced tensely back and forth in the little cabin. On the bed Ancho chirped and croaked miserably.

Svir had agreed to do a job. Only now did he realize just how much he had been influenced by Tatja. He saw that the rescue of the Fantasie collection was an extremely important project—but without the spell Tatja’s personality had cast upon him, he felt no interest in committing his own skin to the undertaking. Art was art, but life was sacred—especially his life. If he went through with the plan, Svir Hedrigs would probably die tonight. And that death would not be the adventurous, romantic death of a hero, but a sick, empty, final thing. Just thinking about it gave him the chills. How close he had come to sacrificing himself for—nothing. If it hadn’t been for Cor he would have, too. Ascuasenya was as true as Grimm was false. He had found out just in time.

He would turn Tatja down—the most she could get him for was his passage. Grimm would have to find another sucker and another dorfox. Hedrigs would see the Doomsday astronomer and get that situation cleared up. And perhaps—no, certainly—he would see Cor again, and ask her to leave Tarulle and come back to the Chainpearls with him.

Svir fed the dorfox a luscious meal, then went down to the main chow hall. He didn’t see Cor. That was unusual, but not surprising. They were still working extra shifts, processing material. He would see her later in the evening, after he confronted Tatja. Svir whistled as he bounded up the steps, thinking of the look on Grimm’s face when he told her he wasn’t going to help her.

The Barge was entering Bayfast Harbor now. That entrance was a narrow gorge cutting through the Somnai cliffs. Seraph was nearly full and its brilliant blue light transformed the normally brown cliffs into shimmery curtains of stone. Svir had to crane his neck to see the top, where the Bayfast naval guns were mounted, pointing down at him. The Tarulle Barge was almost half as wide as the entrance.

Hedrigs’ stride broke as he noticed a small lighter pulling away from the Barge. That girl, with the helmet of short black hair—she looked like Coronadas Ascuasenya; Svir rushed to the terrace rail. She was more than fifty yards away and not facing him—but he was almost sure it was Cor. On her lap she carried a small suitcase. What was going on? He ran along the rail, shouting her name. But the wind, channeled by the gorge, was loud, and she was already far away. The boat rounded the curve of the gorge, disappeared.

Perhaps it wasn’t Cor after all; but the old Fantasie motto came to mind—“Things are not as they seem.”

His mood was considerably subdued by the time he reached the executive decks. He confronted one of Tatja’s secretaries and was ushered into the Science Editor’s office.

Grimm smiled faintly as Svir advanced to her desk. “Have a seat, Svir. Ready to begin the briefing?”

Hedrigs didn’t accept the proffered chair. He stood awkwardly before the desk. Tatja’s physical presence almost made him disregard what he had seen that afternoon, and suddenly it was difficult to say the speech he had been planning. “Tatja—Miss Grimm, I’ve been thinking, uh, about this . . . project. I know it’s important to you—to everyone here. But I, uh, I don’t think that I’m the right, uh . .

Tatja picked a crystal letter-cutter from her desk. She Hashed him a broad smile. “To make a long story short, you’ve decided you would rather not go through with it. You’re willing to pay for your passage, but you feel no obligation to risk your neck on this scheme. Is that what you are trying to say?”