The Venus Belt (15 page)

“Well,” I said, looking around, “old Meep seems to have done pretty well for himself.” The place was a fantasy, a hundred dusky caves and exotic grottoes overlooking a lushly jungled, many-layered floor. The central ca
v
ern was filled with drifting artificial clouds, each topped with a table for two, candles twinkling in the twilight like so many fireflies.

A chuckle burbled up from somewhere inside Lucy’s fuselage. “He oughta. Half the population here usta be his customers back home. Here’s th’ waiter.” That worthy helicoptered up beneath a propellor-beanie fa
s
tened by a chin strap. He performed a theatrical loop, then a hammerhead stall, fell off on his right shoulder, and swooped to a halt, hovering beside the table and sculling with his hands and feet. He act
i
vated our menu and made notes on a ‘com pad in his hand.

I asked for lamb chops with mint jelly and a large baggie of milk. Koko ordered a salad and a small hamburger. Lucy—hell, I’d been half expecting her to plug into the wall for a recharge. She surprised me by ordering a small container of beef broth, then produced a stack of dat
a
chips.

“Lessee now, steak—rare—French fries, milk shake, sp
i
nach...
spinach?
How’d
that
get in there?” She tossed the offending chip over her shoulder. “Guess that’ll hold me. Mind if I go ahead?”

I watched this performance, trying to keep my eyes from bugging out of my head. “Datachips, Lucy? Where’s the nourishment in that?”

“Fer th’ soul, Winnie. Ever heara sensory deprivation? Goin’ through th’ motions helps t’keep me sane—sane as I ever was, anyway. Th’ broth is all th’ real fuel I need, that’n nuclear fusion. Guess you’d like t’know what this is all about, hunh?” A chimpanzee in angel’s clothing swooped by with a flaming sword—someone was having shish kebab tonight.

“It might help keep
me
sane. It isn’t every day you see your friends rei
n
carnated as robots.”

“
Watch yer language!
This’s hard’nough t’take ‘thout wisecracks.” She paused, fiddling idly with the salt and pepper gun as it drifted on its l
a
nyard from the center of the table. “There I was, just startin’ t’enjoy bein’ young agin. If I
ever
got aholda the crab louse who— Anyway, I was out, doin’ a little shoppin’ not a block from here, when all of a sudden,
Pow!
Next thing I knew, they were gettin’ set t’cremate m’pretty little bod. Well, I gave
them
a piece of my—”

“Hold on,” asked Koko, accepting her salad from our self-propellored waiter. “If they were going to cremate you, then how—”

“Just th’ carcass, honey.” She reached down and patted her conical to
r
so. “M’brain’s all nice an’ cozy down here, now. Pretty scary, though, w
a
kin’ up wired to a fare-thee-well, an’ floatin’ in a pickle jar.” She inserted a datachip in a disappearing slot in her chest. “Sesame-seed buns—I love ‘em!”

Maybe this wasn’t the greatest dinner conversation in the world. Su
d
denly my lamb chop seemed congealed and greasy, not at all appeti
z
ing. I hadn’t known Confederate medicine was up to a stunt like this. Clarissa would’ve loved to—no, I couldn’t bear to think about that right now. “If you don’t mind a personal question, Lucy old friend, how in the hell did they get all your nerve connections hooked up right? Aren’t there mi
l
lions—”

“
Billions
—by burnin’ up half th’ core time available in Ceres Central fer sixteen solid hours. Y’oughta see my bills. Good thing th’ insurance— Hold on, I see what yer gettin’ at. Winnie, there ain’t no natural law says a fro
n
tier
hasta
be backward. Shucks, all th’ brains an’ talent’s headed out
this
way these days. You’re here, ain’tya?”

“Yeah, but not for long.” I explained about Clarissa’s disappearance, Olongo’s, too, and the pillage of our home and Propertarian headqua
r
ters, winding up with the attempts on my life aboard the
Bonaventura
.

“Flamin’ frogsnot, Winnie—an’ I thought
I
was accident-prone! But look, son, whoever’s behind all this, the only hope fer us is right here in th’ Belt. Dontcha understand that yet?”

“I’m sorry, Lucy, I can’t think of anything besides Clarissa. I
can’t
hang around here while she needs me, damn it!”

“But Winnie—”

“My god, Lucy, what do you—”

“Maybe Clarissa needs us both
out here
,” suggested Koko.

“Shut up, shut up, both of you, shut up!”

Koko munched her salad, looking hurt. “Yes, Your Redundancy.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. But
you
understand, don’t you, Lucy?”

“Sure. I’m just as worried about Eddie. Been gone three weeks, an’ if it was done as dirty as th’ dirt they done
me.
..” Her datachip popped out. She replaced it absently with another, this one labeled French fries.

Koko leaned over and gently stroked Lucy’s chassis. “You can tell
me
about it, Lucy. I won’t bite your head off, like
some
people.”

“Guess it started when Mark, our Registry Patrolman, mentioned a fewa his customers bein’ outa circulation, ‘thout notifyin’. ‘Course it’s a Free Sy
s
tem. No asteroider’s gonna ask ‘Mother-may-I’ ‘fore he takes off sunside on a holiday or goes prospectin’ Outward. Patrols just wish their clients’d let ‘em know more often...Anyway, there was all this Aphrodite hooraw, too—buyin’ up all kindsa claims in th Sargasso, where mosta Rothbard’s registrees was disappearin’ from. Bout th’ same time, this Tormount gruboon contac
t
ed me, on accounta my engineerin’ experience with Phobos an’ all.”

“Whasha ‘gruboon’?” asked Koko around the last bite of her hambur
g
er. Anyone who claims gorillas are herbivorous never looked at their teeth very closely.

“Why, honey, that’s a sorry specimen prefers muckin’ around th’ bo
t
tom of a gravity well—half th’ population of th’ System, if y’ b’lieve th’ su
r
veys. Don’t understand it m’self, but—”

I raised my eyebrows. “You mean you’ve actually
met
J. V. To
r
mount?” Leave it to Lucy to succeed accidentally where even Voltaire Malaise had failed.

“That’s th’ funny part. I’m a pretty fair engineer, usta dealin’ with th’ front office. But I did all my palaverin’ with a coupla flunkies. An
Orca
,
called herself Brahoohoo, an’ a
Delphinus
name of P’wheet. Figger he’d be any kin t’ Ooloorie?”

I shook my head. “She’s a
Tursiops
,
and besides, if I understand these things, her family name is Eckickeck. Funny you should mention it, she and Deejay are either on sabbatical, or they’ve gone wherever Clarissa and Ed are.” I repeated my conversation with Bertram. “And they’re mixed up with Aphrodite somehow, too, I think.”

Lucy came to the end of her French-fries recording and cued up a milk shake. “Mercury, is it? Well, I always figgered there were other po
s
sibilities to th’ Broach. Next thing they’ll be scoopin’ hidey-carbons outa Jupiter with it.”

“How did Ed get involved in all this?” asked Koko. “Was he one of Rothbard’s disappearances?” She’d mopped up her lunch and was starting on dessert—the only gorilla I know personally who will publicly admit to liking bananas. I was interested in seeing how she’d handle a banana split in freefall—it’s just a little lumpy for the nozzle of a baggie.

“Naw, we’re a long, long way from th’ Sargasso Cluster. See, we were gettin’ ready t’diversify a little out on Bulfinch: giant arctic hares. Been a bristlecone’s age since I tasted fried rabbit, an’ we figgered it’d be a real commercial item. But we needed capital. That’s why I was thinkin’ this Ap
h
rodite proposition over real serious-like. Only they up an’ broke off negoti
a
tions, an’ I couldn’t even get through to
flunkies
after that.”

“Hmm. So Ed started doing a little digging.” I had every reason to u
n
derstand his bump of curiosity. I had one just like it, myself. “Say, do you suppose it’s all right to smoke in this place?”

“Why ever not?” Lucy answered. “Could use a coffin-nail, m’self.” She shuffled through her stack of datachips again, and popped one into the slot—and popped it right out again. “Nope, smoked that one a
l
ready.”

I fished one of my stogies out from under my suit. “Sorry I can’t offer you one of mine, Lucy, or even a light.”

“Lemme do th’ honors.” A tiny flame blossomed from her manipul
a
tor-tip. “A regular walkin’ Swiss Army knife these days, ain’t I? You’re right, Eddie couldn’t leave it alone. Mebbe he was gettin’ bored with hom
e
steadin’, or just tryin’ t’raise our rabbit money. He let th’ truck-garden an’ th’ goldmine go, started pokin’ into th’ Cluster disappearances on a continge
n
cy arrangement with Rothbard’s. Even ordered up a whole mess of expensive Broach-detectin’ gear—”

“Hold on. You mean from Laporte Paratronics?”

“Dunno. I was off doin’ a little freelance legal work. Before I’d got back he’d took off like a Fed outa Philly, leavin’ me a message he’d be home in a few days. Only—only he
wasn’t
,
Winnie.” She stopped for several moments then, collecting her thoughts. It was eerie, listening to her familiar voice in the semidark. The shock was fresh each time I looked over and saw the m
a
chine her mind had become imprisoned in.

And I thought I had troubles.

“He musta had some long-haul travelin’ in mind, ‘cause he left his brand-new Cord at home an’ rented a half-gee flivver with oversize tanks. I got back an’ found that Hamiltonian medallion in his desk, gave you a ho
l
ler, then beat it over here—Eddie’s car’s faster’n mine—t’try an’ trace him through th’ rental.”

Koko’s banana split arrived via “airmail,” prepared upon a miniature bed of nails—the kind of thing they use in florists’ shops. She lifted the transparent lid, carefully speared a maraschino cherry, and closed the top again. “And what did you find out?”

“Never got a chance t’find out nothin’. I’d just got settled in at th’ A
d
miral Heinlein Arms, when some fluke-infested backshooter up an’ killed me.”

***

Step by every other step. I’d laid my plans so far, only to see them d
e
molished by events. Lucy’s resurrection had made a shambles of my latest intentions. We finished lunch by trying to figure out who was going to do what, and when. I had a spaceship to catch in something like thirty-eight hours. Koko wasn’t too enthusiastic about making similar arrangements for herself. Lucy, who’d counted on our help, was still adamant on tracing Ed.

Meanwhile, the most impressive case of jetlag in at least my personal history was beginning to catch up with me: a journey of a couple hundred million miles, filled with unexpected perils and altogether too much exe
r
cise to suit my sessile inclinations. Lucy agreed to escort Koko on a brief expl
o
ration of Pellucidar Gardens; it’s no fun seeing an amusement park alone. In the meantime, I intended to explore my
own
way back into the sunshine and get a few hours’ overdue sleep. We parted at the corner ou
t
side, where the park across the way appeared to be an independent floating world-within-a-world—though I understood there were titanic supporting columns els
e
where, linking it to the city. A million varicolored lights and mo
v
ing signs peeked enticingly through the heavy covering foliage. The Möbius-coaster blasted by, its passengers shrieking gaily.

I watched my friends drift across the canyon, Lucy pulling Koko along behind her, then consulted a map on my face-screen, thoughtfully broadcast by the Merchants Association. Even with its hood down on my chest, the damn smartsuit was useful; I was getting dependent on it a
l
ready.

When there are at least sixteen outfits doing business at any one street corner, things can get confusing. I took a promising combination of tow cables toward the elevator, getting lost only twice on the way, finally whisked to the surface, where I stepped out into the hotel lobby, happy to have my feet planted beneath me once again, if only at the puny rate of ten pounds per extremity.

I stepped up to the desk. “I’m Win Bear—checked my bags here ea
r
lier. I’ve a room reserved until
Lord
Kalvan
departs for Earth.” I looked around. After several hours below, the walls and ceilings seemed strangely empty, almost going to waste.