CONFRONTATION
Anita Halleck stared at the grainy image in the shelter’s phone screen. Her personal assistant, a smooth-faced Vietnamese sitting safe in his office back in Zurich, looked slightly perturbed.
“It’s the weekend here, Mrs. Halleck,” he explained. “The IAA’s chief administrator is at his home in Buenos Aires. That’s a five-hour time difference from here, you understand. Most of her staff has gone for the weekend, scattered all across the map.”
“You must get to her at once,” Halleck demanded, her voice iron hard, “and get her to contact Selene’s governing council and arrange a rescue flight here. My life depends on it.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’ll do my very best,” said her assistant.
“Good.”
His left eyebrow arching a bare millimeter, the assistant added, “It might take a little time, however.”
Halleck’s lips compressed into a thin, angry line. Then she replied, “This is an emergency. You stay on the phone until Selene tells you when I can expect a flight to land here and rescue me.”
“Of course, Mrs. Halleck.”
“And keep me informed every step of the way.”
“Certainly, ma’am.”
Halleck cut the connection and swiveled the desk chair to face Trudy and Oberman. “Bureaucrats,” she muttered.
“But they’ll send a lobber here, won’t they?” Trudy asked, trying to keep the fear out of her voice.
“Sooner or later,” said Halleck.
Still sitting on the lower bunk, Oberman shrugged unconcernedly. “We’re going to be here for a couple of days, I bet. Might as well make ourselves comfortable.” He patted the mattress and grinned again at Trudy.
Trudy turned away from him, but Halleck said, “I suppose you’re right.”
“Could be fun, the three of us together,” said Oberman.
Halleck glared at him. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Before Oberman could reply, Trudy noticed that the light on the control pad on the wall next to the airlock hatch suddenly went from green to amber. Before she could say anything, it flicked to red.
Halleck noticed it, too. “Someone’s using the airlock!”
Oberman jumped to his feet. “Grant,” he muttered. “Gotta be.”
The three of them stared at the control pad as it cycled from red through amber and finally to green once again. The hatch slid open and a space-suited figure stepped into the shelter. It was impossible to make out his face behind the heavily tinted bubble of his helmet but Trudy read the name tag on the chest of his grimy suit: SIMPSON.
“Grant?” Trudy called.
The figure unlocked the helmet and lifted it off his head. Grant Simpson’s darkly bearded face looked grim.
“Grant!” Trudy said again, a gust of relief surging through her. She ran to him.
Oberman’s eyes flicked around the room.
“Sit down, Nate,” Grant commanded. “Just sit down and you won’t get hurt.”
“Whattaya mean?” Oberman asked. But he sat back on the bunk.
Turning to Trudy, Grant asked, “You okay?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Help me out of this suit.”
Trudy moved behind him. Oberman remained seated on his bunk, Halleck stood uncertainly by the console. As Trudy unlatched the life-support backpack, the phone chimed.
“Go ahead and answer it,” Grant told Halleck.
She turned and pressed the keypad. A woman’s face appeared on the screen: sleek chestnut hair perfectly coiffed, golden tan, wearing an expensive-looking blouse of sky blue. She looked distressed.
“Mrs. Halleck, your assistant said you’re in trouble? Some sort of emergency?”
Grant strode to the desk, clomping in his space suit’s boots. “There’s been a mistake, ma’am. Mrs. Halleck isn’t in trouble.”
“And who are you?” the woman asked. “What’s this—”
Grant cut the connection. Then he smashed the phone screen with a gloved fist. It exploded in shards of plastic.
Halleck shrieked, “What are you doing?”
“Have you ever heard of ’roid rage?” Grant asked, smiling maliciously. “I’ve been taking steroids for a long time, lady, and I’m getting goddamned furious with you.”
Oberman got to his feet. “Hold on, Grant. Take it easy.”
Faster than Trudy thought possible for a man wearing a space suit, Grant crossed the tiny shelter in four swift steps and swung his still-gloved right fist into Oberman’s face before the man could raise his hands to defend himself. The solid thunk of the blow made Trudy wince. Oberman’s head snapped back and he toppled backward onto the bunk.
Stomping back toward Halleck, Grant said, “I want to know what your nanobugs are all about. Now!”
Halleck cringed back toward the desk. “You’re insane!”
Grant picked up the flimsy desk chair and threw it across the shelter. It banged against the airlock hatch.
“Now, dammit!” he roared. “Start talking.”
Halleck’s eyes were wide with fright, but she sputtered, “I … I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Grant gripped her shoulder painfully and forced her to sit on the edge of the console.
“You brought the nanomachines to Farside,” he said, “and you got that idiot to spread them around for you.”
“I…” Halleck’s voice froze in her throat.
“What do the nanos do? How long do they last? What are they programmed for?”
“You’re hurting me!”
“I’ll break both your f*cking arms,” Grant snarled.
Trudy went to him. “Grant, please!”
He pushed her away. Turning back to Halleck, “I want the truth out of you, lady. The truth, or so help me you’ll die right here and now.”
Anita Halleck fainted.