Ben Bova - The Rock Rats

“Okay, then,” said George. “I guess the only question left is whether you want a blindfold or not.”

Martin Humphries didn’t wait for Dorik Harbin to arrive at Selene. He ordered an HSS spacecraft to fly him to a rendezvous with the vessel Harbin was on. He grimaced when he thought about the expense, but he wanted to see this mercenary soldier, this hired killer, without Verwoerd involved.

Even though he had studied Harbin’s personnel file to the last detail, Humphries was still surprised when he finally met the man. He’s like some prowling jungle cat, Humphries thought as soon as he entered Harbin’s compartment. Even in the stark cramped shipboard cubicle, Harbin reminded him of a panther, restless energy pent beneath a sleekly muscled hide.

He was definitely handsome, in a rugged, almost cruel way. Harbin had shaved off his beard and put on a long-sleeved shirt and khaki slacks for his meeting with Humphries. The clothes were creased so sharply they might as well have been a military uniform. Humphries felt decidedly civilian in his casual turtleneck pullover and whipcord trousers.

They shook hands and murmured polite greetings to one another. Harbin invited Humphries to sit on the cubicle’s sole chair, a plastic recliner, then sat on the edge of the bunk, rigid as if at attention. Even sitting down he looks as if he’s ready to leap at his prey, Humphries thought.

“I brought you a gift,” Humphries said genially, pointing to the compartment’s blank wallscreen. “Authorization for any, uh … medications you might need.”

“You mean drugs,” Harbin said.

“Yes. Recreational, stimulants—anything you want, my pharmacists at Selene will produce them for you.”

“Thank you.”

“Think nothing of it,” said Humphries.

Then there was silence. Harbin simply sat there, appraising Humphries with his spooky ice-blue eyes. I’ve got to be very careful with this man, Humphries realized. He’s like a vial of nitroglycerine: handle him the wrong way and he’ll explode.

At last Humphries cleared his throat and said, “I wanted to meet you personally, to congratulate you on a job well done.”

Harbin said nothing.

“You’ve earned a sizable bonus.”

“Thank you.”

“That business about sending copies of your logs to several friends on Earth,” Humphries went on, “was very clever. It shows a lot of intelligence on your part.”

Harbin’s expression changed minutely. A hint of curiosity flickered in his eyes.

“Very clever,” Humphries continued. “But really unnecessary. You have nothing to fear from me. I’m grateful to you, and I don’t turn on the people who do their jobs well. Ask Grigor. Ask anyone.”

Harbin seemed to think it over for a moment. Then, “I was being cautious.”

“I understand. In a way, I even agree with you. If I’d been in your position, I probably would have done the same thing, more or less.”

“You mentioned a bonus.”

“One million international dollars, paid to any bank you name.”

Harbin didn’t move a millimeter, but he seemed somehow to stiffen, like an animal that suddenly senses danger.

“I had expected more,” he said.

“Really? I think a million is very generous.”

“Diane said there would be more.”

There! Humphries cheered silently. He’s brought up her name.

“Diane? Diane Verwoerd?”

“Your personal assistant, yes.”

“She has no authority to make you an offer that I haven’t approved,” Humphries said sternly.

“But she told me…” Harbin’s voice trailed off in confusion.

Humphries made himself smile understandingly. “Diane sometimes exceeds her authority.” With a sly wink, he went on, “That’s the trouble with a woman. If they share your bed they start behaving as if they own you.”

“Share your bed?”

“Didn’t you know? She didn’t tell you? For god’s sake, the woman’s carrying my baby.”

Harbin rose slowly to his feet. “Carrying… your baby?”

Trying to keep from showing fear, Humphries sat where he was and said innocently, “We just found out about it a few days ago. She’s pregnant, all right. We’ve been sending the happy news to all our friends. I’m surprised she didn’t tell you.”

The drugs only made it worse. Harbin selected carefully among the narcotics available from Humphries’s supplier, but he could not eradicate the thought of Diane betraying him. For two days after his arrival in Selene he lay in the apartment Humphries had provided him, trying to smother the pictures that played in his head. The drugs distorted his visions, twisted them and made them physically painful, but they did not bring the peace and oblivion that he sought. Just the opposite. They sharpened the knives that twisted in his flesh; they drove the daggers deeper inside him.

She’s been sleeping with him! She’s allowed herself to get pregnant by him! All the time she was with me, she was mocking me, manipulating me to do what she wanted, what they wanted me to do. She’s played me for a fool and she thought she could get away with it.

At last he could stand it no longer. Close to midnight, he lurched out of his apartment into the corridors that honeycombed Selene, bleary-eyed, unshaven, still in the clothes he had slept in for the past two nights. He shambled along the nearly empty corridors, heading for Diane’s quarters.

Sleeping alone in his giant bed, Humphries was awakened by the buzz of his private phone. Grumbling, he sat up and told the computer to put his caller on-screen.

The wallscreen showed Grigor’s somber lean face.

“He’s left the apartment,” Grigor said without preamble.

Humphries nodded and cut the connection. Wide awake now, he bunched the pillows behind him and sat back comfortably, then commanded the computer to show the display from the picocameras built into Diane Verwoerd’s apartment. She had searched her quarters several times, seeking the bugs, Humphries knew. But no one had found the microscopic cameras built into the apartment’s wiring.

Four dark pictures quartered Humphries’s bedroom wall-screen, one view of each room in Diane’s apartment: sitting room, bedroom, kitchen, lavatory. He switched to infrared mode and saw that she was lying asleep in her bed. For two days she had searched Selene for Harbin and not found him. Humphries had secreted the mercenary far from her prying eyes. And fed the man with drugs that heightened his normal sense of betrayal, elevated his anger into homicidal fury. Years earlier chemists had developed hallucinogenic PCPs such as angel dust out of the primitive natural amphetamines. What Humphries’s people were feeding Harbin was far more sophisticated, fine-tuned to turn him into a raging maniac.

Now Humphries sat back in his bed and waited for the conclusion of this little drama that Diane Verwoerd had brought upon herself. Try to force me to knuckle under to you, will you? Blackmail me? Threaten me? Well, now you’ll get what you deserve, you little slut.

Harbin found her door at last. He hesitated a moment, head swimming, fist poised to rap on the door. And give her a chance to call for help? Give her a chance to hide her latest lover?

He forced the lock on the sliding door easily and stepped inside her shadowy living room. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, then he padded silently to her bedroom door. Something smelled rank, foul, and he realized it was his own body odor. She’s done this to me, he told himself. She’s made me into a pig.

Like Circe, he thought, peering into the shadows to make out her sleeping form on the bed. The enchantress who turns men into swine.

She was alone, he saw. He moved to the night table and switched on the lamp.