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But if they failed in their attempt . . .
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Hearing footsteps, he rolled onto his chest. The silence of the garden
amplified the stealthy sound.
Griffith walked into the garden and stood in the starlight, looking up at the
hill. Looking for Kolya. But the cosmonaut had walked away in the other
direction.
You don't need to worry about Kolya, Infinity thought. Even if Griffith stops
us, he can't have Kolya Cherenkov taken off
Starfarer.
Or can he?
For anyone else up here, the plan's failure would mean the loss of job and
ambitions and hope. It might even mean prison. But if Kolya went back to
earth, it would mean his life.
Infinity lay without moving for an hour, watching Griffith watch and wait,
wondering what he could do, how he could guard against the danger his outburst
had caused.
After Griffith cursed softly to the night and walked away, Infinity lay
thinking and worrying for a long time.
Victoria woke alone. She lay in bed, trying to enjoy the sunlight streaming
through her open, uncurtained window.
For someone who achieved the impossible last night, she said to herself, you
are surely in a terrible mood.
She had to apologize to Stephen Thomas for snapping at him. Maybe she should
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also apologize to J.D., but that was harder. She understood prior commitments
and responsibili-
ties ... it would be difficult to tell Grangrana that she might have to leave
the house, and Greg was sure to grind Stephen
Thomas through another emotional wringer. But the expedi-
226 vonda N. Mclntyre tion members were putting their commitment to Starfarer
first.
Victoria did not feel up to talking to J.D. Sauvagejust now. ^
Every way she imagined the conversation, she ended up an-
grier than before, and J.D. ended up hurt and confused.
She burrowed deep under the covers and tried to go back to sleep.
Arachne's signal chilled her fully awake. She sat up and let the web display
Starfarer's new orders.
When she finished reading the display, she gasped. She had been holding her
breath with disbelief. She threw off her /*
blankets and ran into the main room.
Stephen Thomas lounged in the sunlight like a cat. He rose ^
abruptly when Victoria stormed in. ''
"Victoria, good lord, if you're still mad '" ;"
"Look at this." She formed a display so they could look at it together.
^
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Stephen Thomas read the message, frowning. "Jesus H. i
Christ." -f-
Satoshi wandered in, blinking, blank with sleep. "If you've ^
got to fight, why don't you fight quietly?"
"We aren't fighting. Look at this."
He, too, read the message.
It woke him up even better than coffee.
Griffith sat on the balcony of his room in the empty guest-
house. Small puffy clouds drifted between him and the sun tubes. He was as
oblivious to the shadows they cast over him as he had been to the bright
sunlight shining on him a few minutes before. He had not slept, he had not
eaten. All he had done, all he could do, was think about Nikolai Petrovich
Cherenkov, and the Mideast Sweep, and the plans he himself had so carefully
brought into being.
"Marion."
Griffith froze. He would not have believed anyone could come up behind him
without his knowledge. He was fast and he was well trained, but he knew
Cherenkov would be more than ready for anything he tried.
Maybe he deserved whatever Cherenkov chose for him.
"Are you responsible for the new order?"
"It was perfect," Griffith said. "It would alienate the
STARFARERS 227
EarthSpace associates and convert the ship to military pur-
poses, all at the same time."
"You are such a fool."
Griffith turned, carefully, slowly. Cherenkov faced him, empty-handed.
"All I ever wanted was to be like you," Griffith said. "As good as you "
"You prove me right," Cherenkov said. "As good as me?
My country was destroyed! I had no little part in its enslave-
ment. Is that what you want for yourself?"
"That isn't what I meant. I didn't know ... I didn't think . . ."
"No. Of course not. We old men send you young men out to do our dirty work,
and we teach you not to think. Start thinking now! Is there any way to turn
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the weapons carrier back? Any way to stop this abomination?"
Griffith shook his head. The interaction dizzied him. He flinched down,
cursing, and closed his eyes till his balance steadied.
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"No," he said. "It's out of my control. If I were back on earth they might
listen to me. Probably not, though. This is what they want to do. I just
helped find a way to do it. If I
changed my mind, they'd think you'd found a way to force me."
"And here I believed," Cherenkov said wryly, "that you were not permitted any
weaknesses we might make use of."
"I'm not a robot!" Griffith glared at him. "I'm getting married next month!
But when I'm . . . working ... I don't let myself think ..."
"Yes. That is the problem, isn't it?"
"That isn't what I meant, either, and you know it! What do you want me to say?
That I'm sorry? I am, for all the good it will do!"
Cherenkov's expression was mild. "I didn't think you could surprise me,
Marion, but you have." He sat on the wall of the balcony and let himself lean
back over the ten-meter drop.
"Several times over."
"Don't do that," Griffith said.
After a few moments, Cherenkov pushed himself forward again. He sat slumped,
his hands hanging limp. His heavy, streaky hair shadowed his face.
228 vonda N. Mclntyre
"Have you any idea," he said, "how the leaders of the
Sweep will react to Starfarer looming over them, after you have supplied it
with nuclear missiles?"
Infinity entered his dim front room and brushed his finger-
tips through the commeal in the small pot by the door. He tossed his blanket
toward a chair.
"Oh!"
"Florrie!** Infinity hurried forward lo take the blanket from her tap where it
had fallen. "I didn't see you, I'm sorry. What are you doing here? What's the
matter?"
She wore her multilayered black clothes and the shells and beads in the long
patches of her hair. Her gray eyes looked very pale within their circles of
dark kohl. Infinity wondered if the administrators had really thought they
could bully her into wearing regulation clothing.
"I've been trying and trying to get you," she said.
"Why didn't you call me on the direct web? You could have said it was urgent."
"I don't know, I didn't want to, 1 thought you might be asleep.''
He guessed that all her contradictions meant that she, like a lot of others,
felt uncomfortable using the direct link.
"Okay, I'm here now. What's wrong?" He had seen her a
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s.txt couple of times since the party; she always had people with her, come to
talk with her or help her, eat with her or cook for her. Her presence was a
tremendous success. At least one thing had been going right, among so much
else going wrong.
It was too bad she would be leaving. She ought to be home packing. The
EarthSpace transport a few hours ahead of the armed military carrier would be [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]