Authors: Allen Steele
Danzig didn’t love her, and he knew that she didn’t love him. This was a transaction as pragmatic as the payment of a bribe, with flesh as the preferred currency. The sex was dishonest, but it was all too tempting to believe the lie. It had been a long while — too long, really — since the last time he’d been with a woman, and it would be easy to let her take him.
All he had to do was forget what he knew. But he couldn’t. When she sat up to remove her shirt, he finally had a chance to speak.
“Why did you murder them … and try to kill me, too?”
Evangeline had lifted her T-shirt enough for him to see her naked thighs and the bottom of her breasts. She froze, her hands still grasping the shirt’s hem.
“You killed Klaus and John,” he went on, trying not to look at her body. “I know that now, even if I didn’t before.” He paused. “You also attempted to kill me, back when you voided the main airlock while I was inside. I don’t have a good memory of what happened … the doctor says it’s because of shock … so I didn’t catch on to what you did. But now I know better.”
“Otto …” Letting her shirt drop, she stared at him in disbelief. “How can you say that? You saw the pseudocetacean for yourself. You know it exists …”
“Yes, I do … but that’s really beside the point, isn’t it?” He shook his head. “Or maybe it isn’t. I had the whole thing mixed up. The creature wasn’t your alibi … it was your motive, the reason why you decided to murder Connick and Werner.”
Danzig felt an involuntary shudder pass through her body. Her mouth twisted as if she was trying to find something to say, but he wouldn’t let her interrupt him “With them out of the way,” he went on, “you won’t have to share credit for its discovery. Oh, the textbooks will probably mention them, but once we’re back home, you’ll be the one who stands to gain the most. There’ll be a lot of fame coming to the person … the living person, that is … who discovered the first alien, and a lot of money to go with it. You knew this would happen. That’s why you killed them.”
Evangeline shook her head. “I don’t … I didn’t …”
“Oh, yes, you did. You practically said so yourself, while we were making the dive.” Danzig gazed up at her, searching for her eyes amid the shadows of her hair. “I almost didn’t remember it. Maybe I really wanted you to be innocent. But when Dylan told me what I hadn’t know before, that you’d let him know that I was in the airlock … that’s when I realized that what happened to me wasn’t an accident at all. You’d opened the outer hatch while I was in the airlock, but then Dylan ran into you as you were leaving the deck and so you had no choice but to let him know where I was. Because if you hadn’t, someone might wondered why you there, and maybe figured out that what happened to me wasn’t an accident at all.”
“Otto … no.” She shook her head. “That’s not … you know I couldn’t have …”
“Stop it, Evangeline. Just … stop.” He slowly let out his breath. “I know better now, and so do you.”
For several long seconds, she didn’t say anything. Then she reached up to push back her hair, and Danzig saw that her face had changed. All the previous warmth and sexual hunger had vanished, to be replaced by an emotionless mask.
“Just so you know,” she said quietly, “I’m sorry I almost killed you.”
Danzig felt a chill. He’d expected Evangeline to continue asserting her innocence, but apparently she’d decided that any further pretensions of innocence were futile. Which made her even more dangerous than she’d been before.
“Why did you do it?” he asked.
“You shouldn’t take it personally,” Evangeline said, unmindful of the macabre horror of her words. “It was necessary, that’s all. I figured that, since you’re the ship’s arbiter, you’d be the person most likely to investigate what happened to John and Klaus, so I had to take care of you before I did anything else. But once I got to know you a bit better—” a shrug of her narrow shoulders “—well, I came to like you.”
“Really? Be honest.”
Evangeline sighed, shook her head. “No … no, you’re right. I just figured that I could manipulate you just the way I did with those two.” A smile appeared, both sensual and cunning. “I’ve always been able to play men this way,” she continued, playfully laying a forefinger upon his chest and slowly moving it down his stomach toward his groin. “When it comes right down to it, there’s only one thing guys really want …”
“So you planned this from the very start of the mission.” Danzig pushed her hand aside; she responded with a soft laugh that was both amused and mean. “First you slept with John, then …”
“No.” She absently tossed back her hair as she looked away from him. “I slept with John because I wanted to, period. I didn’t want to get bored on the way out here, and he was a lot more interesting than anyone else aboard. But when we were in bed, he’d tell me about what he expected to find once we got to Jupiter, and after awhile I realized two things. First … as you said … whoever found life on Europa would be rich and famous once we got back to Earth. Vids, books, lecture tours …”
“What was the second thing?”
“He and Klaus had already worked things out. Between the two of them, they’d agreed to share credit for any major discoveries, along with any profits. But as for me …”
Evangeline’s eyes narrowed as her mouth tightened into a scowl. “Nothing. I was to be the bathyscaphe pilot, that’s all. Oh, I’d be mentioned in the book the two of them planned to write. Maybe even get my picture in it. But John let it slip that I wouldn’t have a share in anything if they made a major discovery out here.”
Her hand returned to his chest, fingers absently playing with the soft fringe of hair at his sternum as she gazed out the nearby porthole. “That made me angry, I took up the matter with Klaus. I wasn’t going to sleep with him at first, but …”
“You changed your mind when you thought doing so might help change his mind.”
“That was the general idea, yes.” A sly smile appeared on her face. “Klaus was more than happy to have sex with his colleague’s girlfriend … I don’t think the two of them really liked each other that much, really … but the deal had already been made, and neither of them wanted to split the proceeds more than they already planned.”
“So that’s when you decided to kill them.”
“I figured that, if we made a major discovery while on Europa, I’d fake a communications breakdown, then jettison the bathyscaphe’s lower half and tell everyone that there had been an accident. And it almost worked …”
“Except no one believed you’d found something down there. You cut the comlink too soon, and so you didn’t have enough evidence to back up your side of the story.”
“No.” She looked down at him again. “But then I got lucky. You’d survived the airlock blowout, but I hadn’t expected that the Captain would ask Martha to revive you. But when they did …”
“You figured you could manipulate me. Just as you did John and Klaus.”
“You don’t need to think of it that way.” An indifferent shrug, a wry smile. “I told you I like you … you wouldn’t be here now if I didn’t.”
Evangeline bent closer, bracing her arms against the bed on either side of him. “We can work this out,” she went on. “After all, you were with me. You saw the pseudocetacean, too. Once we’re back home, we’ll be very rich and—” her voice became very quiet “—you’ll always have me.”
Looking up into her eyes, Danzig saw that they’d become as cold as Europa’s ocean. “Yes,” he said, “yes, I suppose I could.” The smile reappeared, and she leaned forward to kiss him again. “But then,” he added, “I’d have to explain everything to Captain Diaz.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” she whispered.
“Yes, he would,” Diaz said.
Evangeline jerked her head up to see the captain standing on the other side of the room. Danzig had no idea how long she’d been there; Diaz had been very quiet when she entered Evangeline’s quarters through the bathroom she shared with Margaret.
Evangeline stared at Diaz, her mouth agape and her eyes wide. Then she must have realized that the captain must have heard the entire conversation she’d had with Danzig, because something snapped within her and she lunged forward to wrap her hands around his neck.
She was still screaming when Diaz hauled her off the bed and slugged her.
T
HE NEXT TIME DANZIG
saw Evangeline was when he went to the infirmary.
Except for the bruise and a couple of scratches her hands had left around his neck, he was unharmed by her attack. Diaz wanted him to see Martha, but instead he’d gone straight to his quarters. He was exhausted, both physically and mentally; there was nothing the doctor could do for him that a few hours sleep wouldn’t accomplish just as well.
Yet all he did was lie in his bunk, staring up at the ceiling while his mind replayed the events of the last few days. He’d already told Diaz everything he knew, even before he’d gone down to Evangeline’s room to confront her. In hindsight, it was fortunate that the Captain had insisted on coming with him. If Diaz hadn’t been hiding in the bathroom, it was possible that Evangeline might have killed him. She’d been stronger than Danzig expected, and he was too weak to fight her.
But he could have done something else instead, and it was the realization of what he might have done that finally prompted him to reach over to the intercom and call the command center. He’d intended to ask the captain’s permission to see Evangeline, but he was told that Diaz had taken her to the infirmary. Knowing why they’d gone there, he got dressed again and went upstairs to the med deck.
Danzig found them in the hibernation compartment, along with the doctor and a couple of other crew members. Diaz was surprised when he came in, as was Martha, but Evangeline seemed to have been expecting him.
“Hello, Otto,” she said. “Come to gloat?”
She wore the same sort of thin cotton smock Danzig had found himself wearing when he’d been revived. She stood off to one side of the windowless room, with Kirstin Bigelow to her left and Jim Kretsche to her right; they were apparently there to make sure that she didn’t do anything violent. Yet Evangeline was beyond that; her shoulders were slumped and her hair was bedraggled, but it was the hopeless look in her eyes which told Danzig that she knew she’d been defeated.
“No, not at all.” He paused, trying to figure what to say. “I figured you were going to be here,” he added after a moment, “so I thought I’d see you off.”
“Yeah … okay.” Evangeline nodded. Danzig noticed the drip-line attached to her left arm; Martha had already put her under sedation as the preliminary step toward hibernation; this probably accounted for her dull expression. “Sorry for what I did. You just … you just …”
“I know.” Despite what he knew about what she’d done, Danzig had to resist the urge to walk over and comfort her. It was hard to see her like this; he had a sudden impulse to leave the room, but he needed to see this through.
Evangeline seemed to understand. A wan smile struggled to her face, and for an instant he saw the woman whom he’d trusted enough to take him into Europa’s oceans and bring him back again. Then the smile faded and she looked away, gazing at nothing in particular.
“All right, we’re ready.” Martha finished making the final adjustments to the hibernation cell’s recessed control panel. “You can bring her over now.”
The cell was in its horizontal position, its door open to reveal a padded tank somewhat resembling the inside of a refrigerator. Danzig had slept there on the way to Jupiter; now Evangeline would take his place until the
Zeus Explorer
returned to Earth.
He quietly watched while Kirstin and Jim led Evangeline to the cell. She didn’t resist as they carefully helped her into the tank, nor did she say anything while Martha inserted a feeding tube into her right arm and slid a unisex urine collection cup beneath her smock. Danzig didn’t notice that Diaz had stepped over to stand beside him; he continued to observe the procedure that would put Evangeline into a long, dreamless sleep which would only end when she was awakened to stand trial for the murders of two men.
“She’s ready,” Martha said. She was about to close the door, then she looked over her shoulder at Danzig. “Would you like to say anything to her before she goes?”
Danzig hesitated, and Diaz touched his arm. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “Go ahead, if you want.”
He reluctantly approached the cell. Evangeline lay within it, hands at her sides, looking as if she was about to be interred in a cemetery. Her eyelids were fluttering as the drugs took affect; only a few seconds remained before she was lost to him.
“Goodbye, Mephostophilis,” he said. He didn’t know whether she understood him; he could only hope that she’d remember what he said. In any case, he didn’t get an answer. Her blue-green eyes closed, and then she was gone.
Once its door was sealed, the cell raised to its vertical position and retract into a bulkhead niche. Diaz waited until it was done before she walked over to Danzig.
“Mephostophilis?” she asked.
“A fallen angel,” Danzig said. “The one who tempted Faust.”
“Uh-huh.” From the vague way she responded, it was clear she’d probably never read Marlowe. “And did she tempt you?”
Danzig didn’t reply. Instead, he turned and left the room.
Before becoming a science fiction writer, Allen Steele was a journalist for newspapers and magazines in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Missouri, and his home state of Tennessee. But science fiction was his first love, so he eventually ditched journalism and began producing that which had made him decide to become a writer in the first place.
Since then, Steele has published eighteen novels and nearly one hundred short stories. His work has received numerous accolades, including three Hugo Awards, and has been translated worldwide, mainly into languages he can’t read. He serves on the board of advisors for the Space Frontier Foundation and is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He also belongs to Sigma, a group of science fiction writers who frequently serve as unpaid consultants on matters regarding technology and security.
Allen Steele is a lifelong space buff, and this interest has not only influenced his writing, it has taken him to some interesting places. He has witnessed numerous space shuttle launches from Kennedy Space Center and has flown NASA’s shuttle cockpit simulator at the Johnson Space Center. In 2001, he testified before the US House of Representatives in hearings regarding the future of space exploration. He would like very much to go into orbit, and hopes that one day he’ll be able to afford to do so.