Cold as Ice (24 page)

He closed his eyes to prove his lack of concern and interest, and knew, without a doubt, that Wilsa was staring across at him now, with raised eyebrows and pursed lips.

Maybe that was the difference between Wilsa and everyone else, man or woman, whom he had ever met. He
knew
her and she
knew
him, at some deep-down level, without a word spoken.

And yet there was no matching
physical
bond . . .

Jon's thoughts switched suddenly and uncomfortably to Nell. She would be as mad as hell with him for not bringing her. And it would do no good at all to say that he'd been missing her. She wouldn't waste one moment before telling him off the next time they met.
"Actions,"
she'd say, "not
words
—that's what makes a video show. You can
stuff
your
explanations
."

Then she'd
really
chew him up and spit him out.

She and he were like a pair of chaotically out-of-synch pistons, working against each other with no coordination, wasting energy, canceling forces, missing each other's cycle.

But here was the mystery, another place where logic could not go: Behind the mental mismatch with Nell Cotter lay some hidden power source, a physical fire that he and Wilsa Sheer, sitting by his side, would never share.

13
Sneak Attack

"I believe that for the first time in our acquaintance, I have caught Rustum Battachariya in an error."

Yarrow Gobel had been standing at the waist-high counter that separated the kitchen from the rest of Bat Cave. Now the inspector-general turned and went wandering off along the length of the room, finally pausing to pick up and marvel at the meter-wide helmet of a combined survival-and-assault suit—one of the Great War's most spectacular failures, a device that had performed neither of its intended functions and had killed almost all of its wearers.

Bat, busy with half a dozen covered pots and pans, confined his response to a noncommittal grunt.

"You have told me several times," went on Gobel, his voice echoing along the great cluttered room, "that there is nothing of old Earth that you would wish to have here on Ganymede. Forests, mountains, lakes, grassy plains, blue sky, green expanses of ocean, birds, butterflies, flowers, mist and rain and snow—you yearn for none of those."

"Quite right." Bat removed the pressure lid of a saucepan, frowned down at the contents, tasted them with a ceramic spoon, and replaced the seal. "I have truffles, I have mushrooms. I have garlic and saffron and fennel and capers, native-grown. Earth has nothing to offer me."

Gobel strolled back, to lean again on the counter and watch Bat's cooking rituals. "I am sure that you are sincere in what you say. But still, there is one natural feature of Earth that you would like. One thing that Earth people have, and take for granted, and are even perhaps unaware of, but which you desire." He paused, waiting for Bat's skeptical frown. "You wish that you had, here on Ganymede, the
air pressure
of Earth."

Bat gave a startled glance down at the stove, with its array of closed pans. He nodded. "Say no more. I admit my guilt. It is one of nature's mysteries why humans, who certainly did not
evolve
with a diet of cooked food, should find a water boiling point of one hundred degrees Celsius ideal for the purposes of cuisine. But it is so." He gestured with the spoon at his cooking vessels. "I am glad to see that you, if no one else, understand my predicament. If I cook with open pans, water at Ganymede ambient pressure has its boiling point thirty degrees too low. If I close them and cook under pressure, I cannot taste and stir as often as I should, and continuous tasting is essential in the culinary arts. That and stirring lie at the heart of subtle flavors and textures. The chefs of Earth are uniquely fortunate.

"However, we do what we can." He began to remove lids and hurriedly transfer the contents of the pans to heated serving dishes. "Five more minutes—of concentrated
silent
effort—then I leave it to you to tell me whether or not I have succeeded."

"There has not yet been a failure." Yarrow Gobel took the hint and walked away along the length of Bat Cave.

Bat returned to his labors. Yarrow Gobel did not know it, but tonight's dinner, regardless of the quality of the food, would not be a pleasant occasion.

For Bat was finally ready to admit defeat. Through the inspector-general, he had obtained sufficient funds to identify everyone who had worked on the Pallas data banks and been in Pallas at the end of the war. Many had died in the final battle, and most of the others were dead now—it had happened a quarter of a century ago—but Bat had personally contacted and interviewed every survivor. No one could tell him anything about a purge of data involving the asteroid Mandrake. No one recalled even the name of the converted ore-freighter
Pelagic.

Bat's other bright idea had also ended in failure. The calculations had taken forever, but he had finally received trajectories for survival pods ballistically launched from the
Pelagic
before the Seeker destroyed it. All of the pods had been headed toward the Inner System, with Mars as the closest world and the logical place for distress-signal detection.

There had certainly been no shortage of distress signals. The war was just over, and vehicles crippled in the final disastrous battles were strewn across space from Earth to the Belt.

And the records of those distress calls and emergency pickups had not been lost. They were kept in the Ceres files. Bat had examined them all, checking ship ID's and pod positions and survivor profiles. He had found nothing unusual, nothing to suggest that one or more of those rescued from space could have been in a pod sent out from the
Pelagic.
He had carried forward the computations and search for a full two months beyond the end of the war, to a time when the limited oxygen, water, and food supplies of any pod would long since have run out. And he had found nothing. The survivor pods, wherever they had gone, could have contained no survivors.

Tonight Yarrow Gobel would be expecting a progress report. He had kept his side of the bargain: support, in return for occasional visits to Bat Cave for dinner and Great War discussions. But there was nothing to report. There had been no progress.

Bat began carrying filled dishes to the waiting table. "Two more minutes."

"What's this?" Gobel was down at the far end of the room, examining a flat box about a foot across. "It looks new."

"It is new, and unexpected. A loan from the Ceres Museum, in appreciation of a little work that I did to trace a missing exhibit. The box contains the control disk for the
Pinwheel.
It is all that was ever found of the forty-vessel Mars fleet that took part in the Battle of Psyche. The package arrived when I was already preparing dinner, so I have had no opportunity to examine it. According to the label, the disk is in excellent condition, still perhaps capable of being read. Take a look . . . if you are interested."

The last phrase was Bat's attempt at irony. The inspector-general was obsessed by every aspect of the Great War, and his interest in the
Pinwheel
's disk was guaranteed. Bat, arranging dishes on the table, heard the immediate rustle of stiff wrapping, followed by the creak of a lid and a faint snapping sound.

"Bring it with you to the table," he said. "
Quickly,
if you please." There was a rare urgency in his voice. "This sauce is most delicate. Any delay could ruin its bouquet."

There was no reply. No sound of approaching footsteps. Bat, sauce boat in his hands and poised above the dish, gave an annoyed glance down the room. One of the reasons that he could tolerate Yarrow Gobel's visits was that the inspector-general possessed, most unexpectedly, a sensitive palate and an appreciation for fine food.

Gobel stood bending over the open box. His face was not visible, but there was something odd about the man's total stillness. Bat set down the sauce boat, gave the laden table a regretful look, and started toward the other end of the room.

Halfway there, he paused. The association of events was too clear to ignore. The unexpected package. Its opening by Yarrow Gobel. And now, the silence and frozen posture.

"Inspector?" Bat came no closer, but he moved sideways and crouched so that he could get a look at the downturned face.

Gobel was moving again, letting the open box in his hands fall to the floor. Bat felt a sense of relief that vanished at once when he saw the other man's face. It was blank, utterly lacking in expression.

"Where am I?" The words were puzzled, delivered in the bewildered voice of a child. "What happened?"

"You are quite safe." Bat retreated a couple of steps. The top of the box was still ajar. "Sit down on that chair, over to your right. Do you know who you are?"

"Of course I do." The voice was stronger. "I'm Yarrow Gobel. Who are you?"

"I am Rustum Battachariya. Please sit down." Bat had reached his communications console and now he was speaking into it.
"An emergency. At once, and in suits. No, I cannot tell you if there is still a danger, to me or to anyone else. But I have to assume that there might be."
He turned again to the inspector-general. "Now, Yarrow Gobel, I want you to do just as I tell you. First,
sit down
, and don't move. We're going to have a visitor in just a moment."

"Yes, sir." Gobel finally sat down and stared around curiously at the cluttered contents of Bat Cave. "This is a very strange place."

"You don't remember being here before?"

"Oh, I never have. I'm sure of that. Why am I here now—and not in school?"

* * *

Eight hours later, Bat slid the cave door closed, headed for his favorite chair, and sank quivering into it.

It had been a night of multiple indignities. He could enumerate at least four of them.

First:
Someone had had the temerity to invade the sanctity of Bat Cave with what could only be regarded as a dangerous weapon. Admittedly, the medical staff of Ganymede had found no physical damage to Yarrow Gobel. They had identified the synthetic neurotransmitter released from the package and were now working on the molecule that had piggybacked that transmitter into the inspector-general and across the blood-brain barrier. They also insisted that over time—say, five or six months—Gobel should recover his memories and his adult mind, and no longer be the eight-year-old child who had greeted them tonight in Bat Cave.

But the offense had not stopped there.

Second:
Bat himself had been dragged protesting from the cave and subjected to a demeaning battery of physical and mental tests. That had ended only when, to prove his memory of recent events, he had recited a few parts of the private data file of his chief tormentor.

Third:
To divert attention from himself, Bat had been obliged to offer a deliberate lie. He had told the security officers that the box had been intended for inspection by Yarrow Gobel. Gobel himself was in no position to disagree, and no one could be found on Ganymede who admitted to delivering, or even to having heard of, the package. But it was a lie nonetheless, and therefore unworthy of Rustum Battachariya.

Fourth:
Bat's peace of mind had been permanently affected. For years he had thought of the cave as a totally safe retreat. Now that was no longer the case. Should he then run away? But if so, to where? He could think of nowhere safer than the cave, nowhere whose exits, entrances, blind spots and hideaways he knew better. At the same time, if he stayed in Bat Cave he had to admit that he might be a sitting—literally—target for a new attack.

Bat stared around at his home of many years, noted the dining table, and added a fifth offense against his person: sacrilege. A culinary masterpiece had been ruined, before he or Yarrow Gobel had taken a single bite. If only he had told the inspector-general to wait until after dinner before opening the package . . . but then Bat would more than likely have been close enough to share its contents.

It was time to cease brooding and start thinking. Who, and why?

First, the target of the attack. Presumably Bat himself, but not necessarily so. Yarrow Gobel's visit was no secret; who knew how many people Gobel himself had told of it? And Gobel had arrived a little late, soon after the package was popped into Bat Cave by a delivery Von Neumann. If the inspector-general had been on time, he would have taken the package anyway because Bat was cooking; and knowing Gobel's interests, the man would surely have opened it.

So the target could be Bat, or Gobel, or
both
of them. But Bat's instincts insisted that someone was after him. If they got Gobel too, they didn't mind.

Why?

There were only two plausible motives, because Bat was engaged in only two new activities: He was feeling his way backward in time toward the passengers and cargo of the ill-fated
Pelagic
, seeking the reason for its flight from Mandrake and its destruction by one of the Belt's own weapons. And he was trying to find, within the Jovian system, a secret adversary of Cyrus Mobarak.

Bat was beginning to get ideas about the second problem, but no one else should know about that. He had spoken of the matter to no one, and Mobarak himself had promised strict secrecy.

That did not, of course, mean that Mobarak had provided it. The Battachariyan first rule of data analysis had a corollary: "There is no such thing as a reliable person, only different degrees of unreliability." And as a corollary of that: "
Everyone
has an agenda."

So perhaps Mobarak had talked, or been even more directly involved. But that was not the likely explanation. The line of thought that spoke most plausibly to Bat involved the
Pelagic.
Which was a real irony, since he had that very night been ready to give up the hunt as hopeless and pointless.

But if someone were so keen to keep knowledge of past events hidden that they would attack him directly . . .

Bat sat hunched on his chair, a black cowl drawn around his newly shaven skull. Good so far, but he was missing something important.